


i’ll be your castle

by pixiepower



Series: send me the moon [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Bodyguard Romance, M/M, Minor Violence, Modern Royalty, Non-Explicit Sex, Pining, Slow Burn, Tenderness, meme voice: it’s about the yearning, romantic tender: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:48:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23422711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: There’s something warm that flickers through Seungcheol at the sight of Minghao, grown taller and broader over the years, face slim and beautiful, shining over the luxe cotton-jersey blend. He looks soft, and sweet, and Seungcheol feels that this is the most dangerous Minghao has ever been. Seungcheol has stood at his side and seen Minghao closely as he developed his swordsmanship, blade comfortable in hand like an extension of his body; as he debated freely with the monarchs of adjacent kingdoms in countless diplomatic meetings; as he tamed wild horses like he was one himself.But this?He looks like everything Seungcheol knows he can’t have, and it makes his heart skid to a stop in his chest, Minghao’s fingers tangled in the reins.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: send me the moon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884982
Comments: 36
Kudos: 220
Collections: Seventeen Rare Pair Fest: Round 1





	1. i see the moon

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SVTRarePairFest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SVTRarePairFest) collection. 



> title from “i’ll cover you,” from rent.
> 
> **thank you:** ro, you made this a labor of love, and i’m grateful to you for believing in me. pey, if it’s just you and i, that’s enough for me. sairyna, even if you never see this, your support and your love made this worthwhile. te amo.
> 
> **prompt:** “modern royalty! au with minghao as a prince and seungcheol as his royal guard”
> 
> **for reference:** the setting for this fic is contemporary fantasy with modern country borders. it is alluded that each nation is a monarchy of some sort, be it constitutional or otherwise. basically the world is more or less exactly as it is today, but with princes and princesses/queens and kings instead of presidents and prime ministers. i hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from “be the one” by dua lipa
> 
>  **note:** there is some mention of a character being shoved by an unknown harasser in this chapter, but it is not targeted, not heavily described, and there are no injuries incurred. if you need additional warnings please do not hesitate to reach out!

Seungcheol is twenty when he first wonders how heavy a crown is.

He watches it on television like everyone else, bowl balanced on one knee as he sits back against the sofa, Jeonghan clamoring in his bedroom, probably trying to shake himself free of his blankets.

“Why do they always do the ceremony in the morning?” Jeonghan’s voice echoes in his room, a little muffled.

Seungcheol pulls a face for no one’s benefit and swallows a spoonful of cereal, replying, “What do you mean, ‘always?’”

There hasn’t been a coronation in decades, and this one, in the densest kingdom on the continent, is a big deal. What few heirs there are in this kingdom are still young, still toddling at their parents’ feet, little patent-leather shoes under stuffy hanbok and suits cut smaller than anyone’s ever seen. They won’t be coronated for years yet. Their births were significant, sure, but nothing like this.

Street vendors have been selling flags, slogans, teaware, hoodies, image pickets with the royal family’s faces on them for two weeks, never minding the late-autumn chill, and the café where Seungcheol works after class has had banners hung along the walls like it’s an idol’s birthday since two days ago. It’s kind of momentous. And it’s something _different._ Seungcheol likes different.

“There’s a precedent!” Jeonghan sniffs, flopping onto the couch wrapped in his blanket like a king‘s cape. He wishes, anyway. Jeonghan was born for a life of luxury and leisure, or so he always asserts. “I watched the last one when I was little; it is burned into my memory. Aspirational material.”

“Just because they replayed them so much back then because royalty was super in and it had been ten years since any kingdom’s coronation? That explains so much about the foundations of your personality.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeonghan says primly.

Laughing, Seungcheol shrugs. “They’ve been doing pre-coronation coverage all morning, anyway, you haven’t missed much.”

“Changing the subject does not mean you have won,” Jeonghan sighs, then gasps, pointing at the television. “Look!”

Onscreen, the anthem of the neighboring kingdom plays, and a little banner flutters across the screen reminding viewers exactly what they’re tuning in for. Seungcheol has no idea how they got the clearance to take aerial footage, but a camera pans across the square in front of the palace. They’re doing the procession through downtown first, and then they will crown outside, on the steps of the palace, in front of the hungry eyes of the public. The Queen and King Father have always been traditional, in that way.

With the stodgy wet crunch of cereal in his ears, Seungcheol gets his first glimpse.

The young prince’s face is stoic, ears a little too large for his head, and his eyes take up what feels like half his face. Seungcheol watches the prince’s gaze sweep over the crowd as the procession passes its constituents. He looks nervous, restless, or myriad other things.

“He looks like a baby. Are they sure he’s eighteen?” Jeonghan muses, more to himself than anything.

Seungcheol hums in the affirmative despite the rhetorical question. The prince is definitely eighteen, somehow looking snapsure and scared shitless all at once. Seungcheol remembers that look on his own face. He’s not so far removed from it now. Things are overwhelming even still.

God. Eighteen, and the weight of a kingdom on your shoulders. It seems like so much to bear, feels like something people tell you you’re ready for, whether you agree or not. 

That’s the way things are done, Seungcheol supposes; though, all things considered, parts of it have changed a lot since they first started. Someone came into the café yesterday wearing a replica crown and took selcas by the banner on the wall, posing with a pouty face and their iced coffee. Somehow, Seungcheol doubts _that_ used to happen thousands of years ago when the kingdom was established.

The prince recites vows, repeats them after an official, and Seungcheol’s ears are a little rusty in smoothing out the language of the prince’s practiced tongue, but they speak slowly and with reverence, so he manages okay. Step by step the prince is draped with regalia, layer on layer shrouding his tiny frame, Seal in his hand, responsibility weighing on his shoulders along with all the fabric.

There are so many symbols: the regalia, the mantle, the heirloom Seal, the Crown itself, each of them a different piece of merchandise, now, somehow, which Wonwoo says is a sign of capitalism wrenching apart cultural legacies, for better or for worse. Whatever the case, Seungcheol can hardly keep them all straight, probably could have paid better attention in school about it, but there’s no real reason for him to have known. 

He only knows one piece well.

 _Once upon a time,_ as Seungcheol heard it told, there was a Queen in the neighboring nation, whose rule was diamond — unbending, glittering, and cold. Her beauty was renown, but so too was her safeguard; the walls of the kingdom held fast, protected from all threats, and so too were her emotions. Leaders respected her iron will, but none entreatied themselves with her jurisdiction, as none would deign themselves to enter, to try fruitlessly to curry favor, to fail. 

That is, until one prince, not nearly as handsome nor quite as smart as his elder brother the Crown, made the arduous journey on horseback, alone. The tale goes that his lack of agenda intrigued the Queen, and he was granted an audience with her. He dropped to one knee in front of her throne and bowed his head, but could not stifle the smile on his face. The Prince’s earnestness and boldfaced kindness chipped at something in her heart, and he was reluctantly invited to stay the night. And stay he did, each night again invited shyly by the Queen so that she may enjoy his company the following day, until their love could be denied no longer. They married, and the gates between the kingdoms opened, and her land took on a new Crest. The sun and moon sharing a moment in the sky, awash in gold, over eight flags flying in the morning breeze.

Now, generations later, their kingdoms are all but inseparable, peninsula and landmass, cradling the ocean between them. And to Seungcheol, the only real symbol of their kingdom that matters is that crest, bore in tiny ways by the royal family every day. 

The everyday is more important than all this ceremonial stuff, anyway. His mother’s special-occasion perfume isn’t what Seungcheol remembers when he misses her, it’s her shampoo.

It’s gaudy on the costume jewelry sold on the street, but the real thing is small and pretty, Seungcheol thinks in the back of his mind whenever he catches a glimpse. The kingdom’s pride. Not what they make, but what they are.

It looks almost private when the King slides the Crown Prince’s own kingdom crest onto his pinkie finger, with something in his eyes that looks proud in a real way, not just the way he should look as a king. The prince smiles back up at him, corners stifled with a wobble like he thinks he shouldn’t. It makes Seungcheol smile himself, the ghost of it on his features even when the camera leaves the prince’s face to pan down, getting a closer look at the ring itself.

The gold encircling his finger is reminiscent of the gold atop his head, two crowns at the ends of gangly limbs and features. His head is bowed reverently as the officiant reads vows of service, and when the prince agrees, he looks up. Looks to his people, clamoring at the gates steps away from where he is draped in ceremony.

It’s brief, but sticks with Seungcheol, lingering: when his gaze sweeps over the throng, there’s an overwhelmed look on the prince’s face that flickers and disappears, replaced with a perfectly poised look of solemn gratitude. Maybe he practiced it.

And then that’s it. Something different for a moment, and then back to the usual. The shows will cover the morning’s events for the rest of the day, and Seungcheol will go to work this afternoon, and tomorrow the stalls will be gone, and in a few days the fascination with their strong neighbor’s royal family will fade back to its usual simmer, out of sight and mind for most people.

And the Crown Prince, well.

The prince won’t be enthroned yet; that won’t happen for many years, when the Queen and his father the King step down from their roles and hand the reins over. That will be an equally public affair, a political one. Ceremonial in a different way.

Probably still televised, though. Maybe by then they’ll have a better tv.

•

Seungcheol is twenty-two when he earns favor.

He doesn’t even mean to, and Jeonghan is beyond upset that it wasn’t him who was in the right place at the right time. (“To be completely fair, though, I am rarely in any place at any time.”)

It’s Thursday, and he’s closing the café alone, which is usually a shift lead thing to do, but Minji has to study for her final law exam, so Seungcheol volunteered to cover her. 

The ring of keys on his belt feels heavy with responsibility. He won’t let her down.

Easy enough in theory, right?

But it’s ten minutes ‘til close and there’s suddenly a slender young man who dashes in through the entry, marked by an unceremonious clatter of metal when the loose railing on the door smacks against the frame, the entry bell tinkling pathetically as he tries to veil how heavy he’s breathing. He seems like the kind of person who doesn’t like to draw attention to when he isn’t doing well, if the way he gazes intently at the menu behind Seungcheol’s head is any indication. But Seungcheol is the kind of person who tries to keep an eye on things, so he does just that.

Less than a minute later, through the door stumbles another man, not much heavier than the first but definitely broader, eyes laser-focused on his slender shoulders in his hoodie. Something about it feels… off.

The first young man strides up close to the register, one hand shoved in his pocket, looking for all intents and purposes like he’s going to choose something to order, so Seungcheol says, “Take your time! When you’re ready to order, let me know!” in his cheeriest voice. Tries to convey as much warmth as he possibly can.

Suddenly, though, the young man pitches forward, shoved up against the front counter, the other guy’s fumbling, meaty hands pushing against his tiny little waist, and the intent look on his face flashes into a frozen fear. Seungcheol’s stomach drops.

“Whoa, hey!” Seungcheol shouts, and hops over the counter without a second thought, the way Minji told him he wasn’t allowed to do anymore. This feels like as good a reason as any to break a rule, though. He tugs gently at the neck of the guy’s jacket to ease him back from where he’s crowded in close to the young man. “Back off!”

Small mistake, maybe, because asshole starts swinging.

By what feels like sheer luck, Seungcheol steps out of the way of his haphazard punch, and he barely has time to think about what to do before he slides a hand behind the guy’s arm to push his head forward, and catches the other arm and pulls it behind his back with his free hand. He struggles against Seungcheol’s chest but can’t break free, which kind of surprises him. It’s been a while since he’s actually practiced taekwondo.

“Listen, it’s not worth it. You like coffee? You wanna be able to come back? Take it easy and walk it off, okay? Try again tomorrow,” Seungcheol says in the guy’s ear, feeling his sharp breaths slow down a little as he talks him down. Good. Good. He walks the guy out the front door, arms still behind his back, the little bell jingling as they push it open. “You good?” asks Seungcheol, and he huffs grumpily but nods.

Stepping back, Seungcheol pats the guy on the shoulder and watches him shake out his arms and walk down the street, the yellow of the streetlights painting the sidewalk. His footfall is on the uneven side, gait wobbly with anger or alcohol, Seungcheol isn’t sure, but he doesn’t turn around. 

He’s over half a block away before Seungcheol heads back inside.

When he gets back in and makes his way to the counter, the young man blinks up at him from where his mask is pulled up over his nose, eyes huge, and Seungcheol thinks something about him seems vaguely familiar but he can’t put his finger on it.

“Are you okay?” Seungcheol says, eyebrows knit together with worry. “I’m so sorry that happened. Can I get you anything?”

The young man’s ears quickly go pink-tipped under his shaggy brown hair, and Seungcheol hoists himself up with his arms to hop over the counter again with ease. He stands behind the register again, pushing up his sleeves when he gets there.

“Can I get, uh. Um. Uh,” he starts in a voice like it’s tasting the syllables for the first time, the crowns of his cheeks turning redder by the second. Understandable; Seungcheol thinks he might be having delayed processing himself.

But there’s nobody else in line, anyway, chased off by the scuffle, maybe. Or maybe it’s just almost ten-thirty at night at an independent café, so nobody is here. Seungcheol leans forward conspiratorially: “My favorite is our regular latte, but our matcha latte is good too. I’m great at steaming milk.”

The young man blinks again before letting out a surprised giggle, eyes crinkling and mask stretching just a little over where his cheeks push up, presumably with a smile. Seungcheol smiles into the point-of-sale screen at the sound.

“Okay, Seungcheol-ssi,” he says formally. 

The use of his name surprises Seungcheol into glancing down at his nametag, then back up. “Oh, uh—”

“I’ll have your best green tea latte,” he says, voice tinted with his smile, reaching for his wallet.

Seungcheol turns to the matcha container without ringing the drink through the register. It’s the least he deserves after all of that, and Seungcheol will take the hit if Minji asks about “giving away free drinks” again, because it was his decision. (He’s better than Minju, anyway, who wouldn’t take a single won if it were up to her. Minju does get really good tips, though.)

Under the hiss of the steaming wand, Seungcheol wonders what to say next. He doesn’t want to leave it like this, but he doesn’t want to bring it up and stress him out. They’re almost closed, anyway, so he’s probably going to leave with his drink, and leave Seungcheol a good story to tell the rest of the crew tomorrow.

He realizes he didn’t ask his name. Seungcheol didn’t ask his name!

When Seungcheol turns to leave the drink on the counter, though, he’s sitting down at the closest table, in the chair facing the hot bar. His giant eyes are reflecting the twinkling string lights that Sana strung up before she quit, his cell phone facedown on the tabletop, and Seungcheol makes the snap decision to bring his drink to him.

“Our finest matcha latte,” Seungcheol says, as winningly as he possibly can. “On the house.”

The young man frowns. His wallet is still on the table, billfold open like he just needed to know how much it cost. Seungcheol tries not to stare at how many bills are stuffed into the leather. The wallet itself is nice, too. “I can’t possibly.”

Seungcheol laughs, then blanches, worried that he’s coming across unkind. “Please, allow me. An apology gift, from Choi Seungcheol to…” He trails off nervously, thumb running over the empty nameline on the warm cup.

“Myungho,” he says, and it sounds familiar for some reason. It might just be the tentative way his voice wisps like the steam rising from his cup when Seungcheol slides it over in front of him.

“Myungho-ssi,” Seungcheol repeats. It’s nice. 

The bell on the door jingles as the only other patron leaves, a yawning university student who is kind enough to wave goodbye on her way out. Seungcheol glances down at his watch and startles at the time. They’re pretty past closing now, so he has to get started on the cleaning and prepwork for tomorrow, otherwise Minji will feel guilty for begging off work and her law career will be in jeopardy. 

Seungcheol can’t have that on his conscience, so he makes his way to the entrance, turning off the neon sign, _OPEN_ dimming faintly before his eyes, and pulling the doors shut.

“Wait, what are you apologizing for?” Myungho asks, moving to stand.

“Oh, you don’t have to get up! I’m just going to clean,” Seungcheol says, waving both hands. “And for that guy bothering you. You didn’t do anything.”

“But you’re closing! I’ve overstayed my welcome.” Myungho pauses, like he wants to say more, but nothing comes. Something about the phrase _overstayed my welcome_ rings patently untrue to Seungcheol, and he’s not sure why.

“You haven’t tried your drink yet,” he offers, pouting a little in the way Jeonghan says is annoyingly charming. “What if I need to remake it? What if I’m a liar and I’m really bad at steaming milk? Then what?”

Myungho laughs again, then, that high-pitched giggle floating out from behind his mask and worming its way behind Seungcheol’s ribs, but when it fades, there’s a pregnant pause, and Myungho looks around, gaze lingering on the door. Seungcheol locks it and flips the wooden sign hanging from the handle to _closed._

“Something tells me you are definitely not a liar,” Myungho starts, glancing down at the latte in front of him. “But I certainly am.”

At that, Seungcheol scoffs disbelievingly, and Myungho pulls down his mask with one hand to lift his drink to his lips with the other.

_Oh, he’s—_

Seungcheol’s chest tightens.

He feels a nervous, electric tingle zip up his spine.

_He’s very, very cute._

“What could you have lied about?” Seungcheol manages, hopping over the front counter again to protect Myungho from the class C electrical fire crackling from his face that is threatening to take down the whole café.

Latte in hand, Myungho tilts his head to the side, a curious smile spreading over his face. _Oh no._ “At risk of sounding like an asshole, you don’t know who I am?”

Embarrassment flushes over Seungcheol. “I’m sorry,” he winces.

“Don’t be. I like it.”

In response, Seungcheol chokes on his next breath. He thinks he does an okay job masking it as a cough, since he’s pulling the last batch of grounds, but yikes.

“Nice change of pace. You can call me Myungho if you want, but this might be a little more accurate.”

He leans over the counter and holds out his hand as if to shake, and instead of taking it, Seungcheol looks down. He sees it, then: the heavy gold ring on his pinkie finger, bearing the royal crest of his kingdom. A moon and sun touching in the sky, rising over eight delicate flags.

His eyes flick up, panicked, to revisit Myungho’s face, and it’s like everything clicks into place. Myungho watches up close as Seungcheol’s mind floods with old, parchment-worn images of an eighteen-year-old boy with his face drawn, blown up on television screens as a thin band of gold is placed atop his head. Images of preparedness, feigned or otherwise, as he addresses millions of people, and images of a smile, proud yet shy, because he’s not sure what else to feel yet. Images that Seungcheol never thought he would have to think about again after that day, after he took down the posters and the cupsleeves and the garlands.

“Crown Prince!” Seungcheol gasps. He’s too startled to bow.

“Got it in one,” Crown Prince Xu Minghao says wryly, and _there’s_ the precociousness, there’s the sharp but not unkind glimmer in his eye that Seungcheol feels like he knows. It’s very disarming to have it turned on him.

“I’m so sorry,” Seungcheol stammers, again, because apology is basically his default setting and he’s trying to remember Minghao’s home language, but Minghao laughs again, a squeaky perfect sound, which makes the stammering worse, and, God, can Seungcheol ever catch a fucking break? 

(Granted, if this is the worst it gets, embarrassing himself in front of the Crown Prince of a whole entire kingdom, even if it’s the next one over, Seungcheol can maybe live with that. It’s at least going better than the morning after he and Wonwoo slept together, the pinnacle of mortification, no matter how good it was.)

Minghao takes a slow sip of his latte, both hands wrapped around the cup, thin fingers interlocking. He closes his eyes and lets out a pleased hum. Despite himself, Seungcheol smiles, and when Minghao opens his eyes and sees him grinning the faint pink on his ears deepens.

“Will you sit with me?” asks Minghao. He doesn’t change languages, doesn’t watch Seungcheol struggle. It’s generous of him.

Seungcheol puts the stopper in the sink to let the blender parts soak and says, “Sure.”

Minghao stares pointedly at the floor when Seungcheol lifts himself over the counter again, and Seungcheol runs a hand through his hair sheepishly. He supposes he should be using the swing-door; it’s a bad habit to get into, not that Minji ever checks the camera footage anyway.

“Do you have any martial arts training, Choi Seungcheol-ssi?”

As he slides into the seat opposite Minghao, Seungcheol’s brow furrows. “I studied taekwondo for a while. I have a black belt,” he offers.

Relief melts onto Minghao’s features, and he seems to sense it on his own face. He laughs at himself a little and says, “That’s wonderful news! Gives me an excuse.”

“An excuse to do what?” Seungcheol gets the feeling that the Crown Prince is going somewhere fast, and that he is running alongside him trying to keep up. Minghao strikes Seungcheol as the kind of person who thinks before he acts, and he seems to be currently trying to think and act at the same time. It’s a feat to behold.

“To take you on, of course.”

“I’m not fighting you!” Seungcheol yelps, eyes wide. 

The Crown Prince was just _harassed_ in front of his eyes, and suddenly he has pent-up aggression to relieve on Seungcheol? This is so not what he signed up for.

Minghao’s face goes through a full spectrum of emotion before landing on stifled amusement, giggles restrained by his tight facial muscles. He straightens out the cords on his hoodie before laying his fingers out flat on the table he shares with Seungcheol. “No! Take you on for _work._ To work as a royal guard. More specifically… my guard.”

“Sorry?”

“My mother has been after me to take on a personal detail for some time, and despite my apprehension I’m thinking now that…” Minghao’s mouth draws into a line as he remembers the night’s assailant, but relaxes after a moment, like he’s about to tell a joke. “She may be right, as she often is. And I think you’re a good fit.”

Seungcheol blinks.

Minghao waits. He takes another sip of his latte, shoulders pulling up toward his face as he smiles against the plastic of the lid. He looks young, still, growing into his ears and nose. But his eyes are so bright, like they contain stars.

“But… but you don’t know anything about me,” says Seungcheol. He’s not sure just how sheltered the Crown Prince is, but all of this seems a little slapdash, like that time Jeonghan asked Seungcheol to dare him to make out with the bartender at the dance club next to campus and, before Seungcheol could even oblige, had his hands in Jihoon’s hair and his legs on either side of his waist as he sat on the wrong side of the bartop.

“You’re right,” Minghao says with a smile, “Except you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Seungcheol asks.

Minghao clears his throat and counts off on his fingers. “Let me see if I have this right. Choi Seungcheol, twenty-two, the younger of two brothers. Recent graduate of Seoul National University with a focus in business and an interest in sports medicine that you never actually specialized in, and you’re going to get promoted to shift lead here once Kim Minji gets hired by the law firm where she interns. Oh, and a black belt in taekwondo.”

He’s trying not to grin, Seungcheol can tell, but there’s a delight gracing Minghao’s features that he likes a lot.

“Okay, so maybe you know about me,” concedes Seungcheol. “I guess I should have figured a prince can order some research.”

Shrugging, Minghao tips back the last of his latte. Seungcheol follows the line of his throat as he swallows, but catches himself, snapping his eyes back to where he is trying to keep busy folding his fingers together on the table. “Yeah, but research can only tell me so much. Meeting you today makes you much more impressive to me than you might seem on paper, Choi Seungcheol,” Minghao says, moving to stand.

Seungcheol scrambles to stand, too, and quickly finds himself in between Minghao and the door. “Wait, you can get back safely, right? You didn’t really come here on your own?”

At that, Minghao tilts his face up to look at Seungcheol, really _look_ at him. Seungcheol hopes his features stack up to the scrutiny Minghao is putting his pores under, because the expression on Minghao’s face is unreadable, drawn with consideration. A beat later, Minghao tugs his mask up over his mouth, his long, pretty fingers smoothing it out over the bridge of his nose.

Not too quickly, though, that Seungcheol misses the shy smile that briefly crosses Minghao’s features, and he feels the palms of his hands tingle.

“Thank you for your concern, Seungcheol-ssi,” Minghao says genuinely as he maneuvers around Seungcheol’s body, lithe and quick, to unlatch the door. “I called a driver to get me back. Will you consider my offer?”

Seungcheol nods, a little speechless, and watches as Minghao waves a dismissive hand at the window of the black car that pulls up to the curb next to the café, opens the door himself, and climbs in. Before he closes it, Minghao holds up a hand to wave goodbye to Seungcheol, eyes smiling in the dark above his mask, and Seungcheol waves back, eyes huge and goggling.

How can he not at least consider it?  
  


•

Minghao at least had given Seungcheol the night to think it over, to consider whether or not he was the kind of person who could guard someone else, to — against his better judgement — wake up Jeonghan in the middle of the night and feverishly try to explain what the fuck is happening. 

“This better be good, Choi Seungcheol,” Jeonghan snaps, voice ringing clear despite his sleep-weary eyes.

“The neighboring prince wants me to be his guard,” Seungcheol tries. 

The look in his eyes must be appropriately manic for the situation, because Jeonghan sits up in bed and leans forward quizzically, yawning, “Sorry? What prince?”

It’s a valid question; their own royal family is small, the Queen aging gracefully, with no heir but for the handful of young children in the court. Where to begin? When he tries to formulate a response Seungcheol’s energy rushes out of him all at once, and he just gesticulates vaguely, giving Jeonghan a bewildered shrug and wild hands.

“Crown Prince Xu Minghao?” He winces when he says it.

A beat, and Jeonghan seems to realize he’s serious. He places his hands on Seungcheol’s shoulders, looks deeply into his eyes, and promptly pushes Seungcheol onto the floor. 

Seungcheol can work with that.

Seungcheol also decides, after perhaps less time than is wise, that if Minghao has made the decision to trust him, he can trust him back.

Until tonight, Seungcheol didn’t know princes could have Kakao accounts. Seungcheol is beginning to get the feeling he doesn’t know a lot of things about princes.

But after a stilted exchange of messages (Seungcheol should have been less surprised that Minghao was able to find him so easily. Everything is under his full, real name, anyway. He wonders if he should maybe try to be a little more mysterious, try to be a little harder to read, but he figures there’s no harm in being yourself.), Seungcheol manages to pack a bag and stares up at the ceiling, watching the light change as the sun rises, wondering how he got himself into this situation.

He scrutinizes his own face, nose to the mirror, wondering if his dark circles are just the way you’re supposed to look at twenty-two. But Jeonghan doesn’t look like this, and he eats like shit. At least Seungcheol can cook asparagus. 

Seungcheol swallows his pride and yells out, “Jeonghan, can I borrow some eye cream?”

“I know you’re not asking me for favors, Choi Seungcheol. Or waking me up twice in one night! You have exhausted my kindness!”

It is not nighttime anymore, firstly, it’s fully seven in the morning. But the little mint-colored jar of eye cream is on the vanity sink when Seungcheol returns after ironing his good dress shirt, so there is some kindness left, after all.

Despite the expensive and admittedly helpful eye cream, and the attempt at artful hair styling, and the nondescript black car that picks him up at the front of their lackluster apartment building, none of it really hits Seungcheol until hours later, when he gets off the plane and steps out of the car and is escorted into the palace by a slender woman with a serious face, and then, when she takes her leave, by a young man with round cheeks and sharp eyes.

Once, when Seungcheol was young, he visited the palace on a family trip. It seemed so enormous, then, like every person Seungcheol had ever met could live inside, sleep in a different room every night, watch the sunrise from a different window, and never have to go outside or want for anything. The pillars and blind arcades were so beautiful, the polished marble sailing upward overhead like comets in the daytime. Seungcheol had stood on the steps, short legs shoulder’s width apart, and traced the features of the walls with his eyes, trying to find shapes he knew in the black and gold swirls within the porcelain stone. The higher he looked, and the closer he got, the harder it was to see.

To his eyes, now, it looms, still, but in such a different way.

That is, until—

“Seungcheol-ssi!” Minghao says, all soft-textured ivories and silver buttons and smiles. How he can look so put-together at this hour, Seungcheol isn’t sure. 

“Crown Prince!” he replies, with more nerves than gusto.

Minghao’s expression is bright, but his gaze falls onto Seungcheol’s escort, and he drops into a respectful but not deferent bow. “Soonyoung-ssi, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

Soonyoung’s bow is even deeper, almost comically so, and Minghao rolls his eyes, one of those expressions Seungcheol has to reconcile between _prince_ and _teenage boy._ “Page work, as ever, Crown Prince.”

Minghao frowns. “Still?”

Soonyoung shrugs, and shoots a quick grin at Seungcheol like he’s in on the joke, too, despite all evidence to the contrary. “Not for much longer, I hope. They’re thinking of considering me for the combat apprenticeship, I think.”

“Well, stop all that thinking, it’s dangerous for you to suddenly work muscles so little used,” Minghao says slyly, but he beams at Soonyoung with something like pride. “I hope it works out, goodness knows combat training is far too boring without you.”

Soonyoung’s face is gleaming, laughter seeming to grace him even when he isn’t laughing outright. His features hide nothing. He strikes Seungcheol as the kind of person who says exactly what he means, if not with words, but with expression. It’s refreshing, especially since everything about the palace screams _propriety,_ sings _keep your cards close to your chest._ Everyone but Soonyoung and Minghao seems to follow that credo, at least.

“Thank you,” Soonyoung says, appled cheeks pleased. “Anyway, I’m off. Duty calls. Give my regards to Her Majesty the Queen. Take care, Seungcheol-ssi.“

Seungcheol startles, bewildered that Soonyoung managed to capture his name at any point of this puzzling exchange, stammering out thanks of his own as Soonyoung disappears with another bow just as quickly as he materialized.

Perhaps it’s his lack of sleep, the hyperoxygenated royal air, or the familiar, evaluating way Minghao is looking at him, but Seungcheol feels a little bowled over.

“Are you all right?” Minghao asks quietly, stepping in closer. His face is turned up, his brow furrowed, his eyes roving Seungcheol’s face, reading each line on his features like a book.

Seungcheol nods, because he supposes he is, all things considered. “I came here when I was young,” he says, in lieu of a real response. “I thought maybe all of this would seem a little less... big. Grand. Now that I’m older. But it does and it doesn’t, you know?” There’s something unspoken that lingers where he trails off, something like _am I supposed to be here? Why did you want me here?_

Minghao hums with recognition, seems to make a little decision. “We have a few minutes. Do you want to walk with me?”

Seungcheol nods again. What reason does he have to deny him? When you swim in the ocean, you ought to expect to encounter a box jellyfish or two. He’s always been torn between admiring them and avoiding them, but he supposes there isn’t much choice now.

As they walk, their footsteps echo in the hallways, the cascading plumage of gold-and-blue flowers punctuating each archway doing little to muffle the sound. 

Seungcheol is struck by how different Minghao seems now, how he fits in with these new surroundings like a dress-up game. New outfit, new background, same paper-doll base. Swathed in ivory-white, gliding down hallways like a swan in a canal, Minghao looks _princely._ It’s a far cry from the casual boy he met yesterday. Mere hours ago, actually, Seungcheol reminds himself.

Minghao’s footfall is quick and sure. He walks with purpose, and he turns his head every few steps to make sure that Seungcheol is still following close behind. (He is.)

“Ah, here,” Minghao says suddenly, turning sharp on one foot and pushing gently on one of a set of double doors, swinging them open to reveal a balcony. “We have a little time before my mother will want to see us. Or, me, I guess. You’re a surprise.” The lopsided grin Seungcheol met last night is back, but Seungcheol doesn’t feel at all like it’s at his expense.

The balcony is shrouded partially by tall leafy trees, morning sun streaming through the leaves, diffused light speckling everything golden and soft. It looks down upon a fountain, what looks to be a receiving area open to the air, and further down toward the horizon, a grassy training area enclosed by palace paths to all sides. The illusion of sky and distance and freedom, framed by marble column and stone parapet. There are two chairs, rattan and cushion, and a small tray, set up to shade just out of direct sunlight, but ready to absorb warmth.

It’s a pocket of comfort in the cold grandeur of the rest of the palace, and Seungcheol gets the feeling Minghao would have curled up in one of the chairs already, were he not here. He can see Minghao’s fingers skimming the edge of the tray with familiarity, and his eyes meet Seungcheol’s. They’re warm, too, and under their heat Seungcheol adjusts the collar of his shirt under his jacket, fussing with the too-stiff material.

“It’s a good place to calm the nerves, too,” Minghao offers, adding, “You’ll be in good hands here. I hope you aren’t worried.”

Seungcheol chews on his lower lip. “I don’t know if I should be. I’m not exactly sure what to expect.”

Minghao looks apologetic. “Oh. That’s fair,” he says, cheeks absorbing the edges of his lips pressed together into a line. “I meet with my mother every morning to discuss the day’s agenda. What my tutors will go over, how my training has been going, she tells me my official itineraries will begin soon so I need a detail, I tell her I realize that that is a reasonable expectation but having an old-fashioned guardship is going to make us seem out of touch... You know. A normal day’s work.” There’s a tired-looking, wry smile Minghao gives Seungcheol at that, and Seungcheol’s chest twists a little.

“But today you have me,” Seungcheol ventures.

As though startled into it, Minghao’s smile brightens just that much more, eyes crinkling genuinely, and he aims his smile at the floor. “Yes. Today I have you.“

He gets the feeling that Minghao goes it alone a lot. Surrounded by people but always alone. There’s a lot of responsibility resting on his shoulders, and no matter how ready you are to take on that kind of thing, it can’t hurt to have someone ready to carry some of your weight. Seungcheol looks at Minghao, takes in his pulled-back shoulders and slim frame, follows him back toward the throne room, and thinks, _I think I can be that. I can do that._

Each moment Seungcheol spends in Minghao’s company, something solidifies in his mind and heart that he’s making the right choice, that being in the Crown Prince’s corner is a good place to be. Jeonghan told him to be careful, to really think about this, but, honestly? Seungcheol is tired of planning things out. His gut has never tugged this strongly toward the risky thing before, but he’s ready to trust it. Ready to trust Minghao.

“Minghao,” the Queen’s voice rings out, and Seungcheol’s resolve hardens, coal pressed into a diamond. He smiles broadly at Minghao, who offers a distracted half-smile and nod in return as they round the corner to present themselves before her.

When Seungcheol straightens out of his bow, he sees her, maybe two meters away, seated on the throne like a Queen in a children’s book. Maybe the fairy tale is yet to come after all. She is actually fairly tall, willowy like her son, all the stature of young spring bamboo, but Seungcheol feels the weight of her words like they’re stacked on his shoulders. Everything sounds optimally arranged, influential, purposeful. 

She is so like Minghao. Or, he supposes, Minghao is so like her.

“Would you like to discuss yesterday with me, _er zi?”_ the Queen starts, gaze fixed on her son, and Minghao nods curtly.

“Swordsmaster Chou believes I am ready to test into the next training level with my short sword, though my rapier technique still needs work. Languages are going well, also.”

“Mm.” The Queen sounds bored with all of this, like none of it was what she was really interested in, and cuts to the chase. “And what of your jaunt downtown, Minghao? Would you be at all interested in discussing with me the reason why I heard that you were out there alone, not from you, of course, but from Nayoung, because for whatever reason public relations and affairs knows the goings-on of my own son more than I?”

Well, Seungcheol supposes the Queen herself is at liberty to determine when to forgo diplomacy. Minghao goes a little pale, and Seungcheol is overtaken by the sudden instinct to step just in front of him, to close ranks. He won’t. But he could.

“Someone saw me?” Minghao says in a small voice, deflating a little. It’s still careful, just like always, but so different from the calculating, playful way he spoke last night. Seungcheol kind of hates it.

“Yes, and we paid for his discretion. You are lucky the only one who saw you was so easily persuaded! Nayoung has more pressing things to do than to smooth out the ripples your excursions cause, Minghao!”

Seungcheol has never heard the Queen raise her voice like this. It sounds less like the annual addresses he’s heard from her and more like his own mother scolding him for staying out late. On one hand, it’s nice to know that mothers are all cut from the same cloth, but on the other… He glances at the door they entered through, wonders if he should even be here for this. Minghao must sense his apprehension; behind his own back he tugs sharply at Seungcheol’s sleeve without so much as a glance.

So Seungcheol stays.

“You are even luckier nothing happened to you. Minghao, you are a _prince,_ the _heir_ to this kingdom, and you acting cavalierly reflects poorly on the leadership of the Crown. If I cannot control my son, some will think I cannot control the things that happen to my people,” the Queen sighs. But as she looks at Minghao, her eyes soften. “I have never been one to try to control the people who live in this kingdom, and what’s more, I have no interest in controlling you, _er zi…”_

Minghao smiles back at her, but it seems resigned, labored. “…but we need to think about appearances,” he finishes.

The Queen sighs again. She makes it seem so worldly and wise, though Seungcheol can see she is genuinely tired, too. It’s difficult to be here, to be allowed to overhear this private conversation. But through it all Seungcheol is surprised to find that he is good at standing still. If he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t say anything, standing strong and on guard for the Crown Prince will be easy.

Minghao only has to tell his mother first.

“I want to put you at ease, mama, so I can appropriately prepare for enthronement. This is Choi Seungcheol,” Minghao says finally, and Seungcheol bows deeply. “I have selected him to serve as my personal guard so I no longer worry you with my itinerary.”

The Queen’s eyes fall upon Seungcheol for the first time, and he tries to arrange his face somewhere between solemn and smiling. She gazes long upon him, evaluating, and looks back at her son, standing as Seungcheol’s mirror with his hands behind his back. Where they’re clasped at the small of his own back Seungcheol’s hands sweat a little, but he keeps his body in a line. He never expected to have to curry favor with royalty, and to be frank, he’s not entirely prepared to start today.

“Your Majesty, I have much to learn, but I am prepared to do what I must to protect the life and dignity of your son the Crown Prince,” says Seungcheol, the words coming out clean, tasting of none of the nerves that shook through them when he was running them through his mind. 

He bows again. Is that laying it on too thick? No, she’s literally the Queen. Seungcheol wishes Minghao gave him a crash course in all of this before this meeting.

 _“Er zi,”_ the Queen begins, but quietens as she looks over her son and Seungcheol again. He gets the feeling that this will not be the last time he must pass muster under her gaze, but he at least must make the most of the first time. She deliberates for some time, and Seungcheol digs his thumbnail into the meat of his palm to keep his heartrate steady. “Are you certain?”

“I will take on personal detail effective immediately, so long as it is Seungcheol-ssi.”

Another lingering pause, this time punctuated by a resigned smile of her own. “As you shall, Minghao. I will have Jinah draw up the necessary documents. And Seungcheol?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“I expect much from you.”

And Seungcheol’s palms itch, but he smiles, dipping into a respectful half-bow. “I promise you both that I will rise to the occasion.”

He chances a glance at Minghao, whose face is middling somewhere between nervous and hopeful. A tiny pleased smile flickers over his face, like Seungcheol said the right thing, and a warm feeling passes over him, settled on his shoulders. Something like _maybe._

  
•

As Seungcheol trains, so too does Minghao.

Those first few months they actually see quite little of each other, and Seungcheol hardly notices for all the other things occupying his time and mental space.

He texts Wonwoo when he remembers to, video chats with Jeonghan when he can. Wonwoo moves into the apartment in his place, his own lease ending overlapping with Seungcheol’s departure by a week and a half, and Jeonghan says Jihoon might sublease the living room (which to Seungcheol means that he will be _in_ Jeonghan’s room more often than not). 

He visits his parents and his brother before he moves, trying to explain what’s happening. Trying to figure out how to keep his head straight about it all too. 

There’s a sneaking suspicion he has that they think this all sounds like a fairy tale, and on paper, it does. But aren’t fairy tales supposed to be more magic than work? The wave of a wand, a true love’s kiss, and everything in your life fits together? 

This is decidedly… not that. To be frank, Seungcheol is _exhausted._

Early on, Seungcheol was inundated with language courses and etiquette classes, wrapping his tongue around the word of the nation and his mind around the who’s-who of the royal family, the cabinet of tutors and captains and other taskmasters at the palace. His political science classes and university degree helped some, and on his break days he went home — well, not home anymore — and let Jeonghan quiz him on his ‘foremost figures’ flashcards while they played computer games together.

Now, his days are mostly filled with weapons training and physical fitness, the brief relief of meal breaks over in the blink of an eye. He takes well to hand-to-hand skills, especially mediating and disarming, not so quickly with all the weaponry. The Captain of the Guard has assigned him more handgun practice, and Seungcheol is not terribly eager for it to start. 

When Seungcheol holds it, his hands still shake.

His favorites are the javelin and staff, precise and blunt in equal measure, the distance giving him advantage to disengage, the wield of them strong in his hands. Throwing javelin requires Seungcheol to absorb every piece of the environment before making quick decisions; using bō is like an extension of himself, threatening potential but perfect for disengaging with minimal impact.

He is fitted for a bulletproof vest, to be worn when he escorts Minghao to events, to scheduled volunteerism. Outside palace walls. The first time Seungcheol is strapped in, it’s difficult to breathe. It’s heavy, with Twaron and with responsibility. He hangs it in his guardsquarters when it is issued, and spends the better part of an evening just… staring at it.

It feels wrong, to be wearing something like this, when Minghao will not. When Minghao is beside him, to think that Seungcheol is supposed to take the place of a vest, to protect his life with his own… that’s certainly an undertaking. But it seems a hell of a lot more important a job than whatever he thought he was going to do before.

As he runs laps, weapons hung with purpose and pride of place in the center of the training square, he finds himself dreading a day where he might actually have to use all these skills. It’s one thing to work in the abstract, to let himself sweat in the sun, and to day by day see his body change with the rigor of training, to just muscle and mind through it, treat it like the next level of taekwondo study. 

It’s quite another to see Minghao bid goodbye to his tutor and lean his cheek on his arms, folded against the banister of the bridge overhead, watching Seungcheol run from some ten meters away, and remember just what he’s meant to be learning to fight for.

So he grits his teeth, breathing deep through his nose and out through his mouth, and lets his feet pound against turf, feels sweat drip down his bare skin where the sun spreads itself from his shoulderblades to the small of his back, and slaps Yoona’s hand in accomplishment when he slides home at the end of his workout. His arm stings when she slaps his hand back, palm to palm, with a loose grin. 

He shakes it out, whining, “Yah, noona! What are you so strong for?”

Yoona laughs and flexes her arm, her bicep rivaling Seungcheol’s own. She’s toned, having trained practically her whole life. “Captain’s daughter, remember? Come back when you can actually beat me at arm-wrestling.” She leans in, conspiratorial, jerking a thumb up between them to where Minghao is still looking down at them. “Then maybe you can impress our Prince, hm?”

Seungcheol colors spectacularly, stammering, and Yoona laughs like she told a good joke, her leather-wrapped fist chucking him on the shoulder.

“Go on, rest up. Gun training tomorrow, and Lord knows Yuri won’t be as easy on you as I am.”

Bowing to her in salutation, Seungcheol unwraps his own hands and wrists, tying his leather bands in a neat bundle and tossing them in his pack. When he looks up, squinting against the sun, Minghao waves at him, the tiny movement of his hand like a flower blowing in the breeze. 

Seungcheol is suddenly all too aware of just how shirtless he is, and swallows hard, quickly pulling on his undershirt and t-shirt, hoping it’s not as wrinkled as he fears it is. A shower is definitely due, but Seungcheol doesn’t want to get into the habit of keeping the Crown Prince waiting. 

Especially not when Minghao is descending the stairway to meet him on the training square, unreadable little smile on his face. He bows at the other guards and trainees he passes, greeting them by name. Yoona bows as she politely takes her leave, and Minghao nods at her with an admiring look in his eyes. It strikes Seungcheol how singleminded Minghao seems to be, but he still manages to give everyone a moment of his full attention. It’s daunting when that attention is turned on him.

“Hi,” Minghao says, and his face brightens as he does. 

Seungcheol tries to tamp down his own expression, lock in his features. _Remember, anyone who can see what you’re thinking is one step closer to the Prince._ Seungcheol tries to treat this like a test, tries to ignore sparkling eyes and dumplinged cheeks on a slender face.

“Good afternoon, Crown Prince.” A colossal failure, because Minghao has to turn away to poorly stifle a giggle against the front of his shoulder. Heat flashes up Seungcheol’s neck, only partly due to the cardiovascular exercise. He pouts a little, whining, “Stop, I’m trying!”

Minghao smiles in earnest, then, and Seungcheol lets himself smile back. Enough training for one day.

They wander out of the training area, back up the steps, Seungcheol’s thighs aching and sore as he climbs, even as resolute as he is to keep his breathing even when he ascends ahead of Minghao.

“How were your lessons?” he says, voice only a little tight with effort.

Quick as anything, Minghao’s eyes glitter bright like fireworks as he snaps them up to meet Seungcheol’s gaze. He says, “Better now that they’re over.”

“Oh, that can’t be true. You’ve been looking forward to this language assessment, so I’ve heard.”

Minghao’s eyebrow raises. “And how did that get around?”

Heat like embarrassment flashes up Seungcheol’s face, and he says unevenly, “Well, I train with Soonyoung, you know, and he said he was talking with Seokmin...” Seokmin is the oration apprentice, working under the languages tutor. He and Seungcheol have met only a handful of times in passing, but from his understanding, he and Soonyoung are all but inseparable.

“Say no more,” Minghao sighs, rubbing at his temple with one hand but offering Seungcheol a squished-eye smile. Ever the diplomat, soothing Seungcheol’s bashfulness despite his own. “Far be it from me to convince Kwon Soonyoung not to talk about something, especially when Lee Seokmin is involved.”

A large part of Seungcheol wants to pry about that train of thought, but he finds it difficult to steer his mouth in that direction when Minghao still looks like he wants to share something. For all his princely training, he hasn’t yet mastered the ancient art of hiding his eagerness; the Queen herself is publicly aloof, if not cold, his father the King thoughtful in his presentation, but Minghao is spades easier to read — energy vibrating off him in waves, in twitching fingers and wiggling toes and quirking corners of the mouth that constantly catch Seungcheol’s eye. Perhaps it’s his own training, all the perception improvements and increased response time, that has Seungcheol’s gaze training on flickers of movement, on the way Minghao is constantly stilling himself in order to suppress his emotions.

But even when Minghao catches himself, the look on his face gives away the way he’s on pins and needles, something bursting out of him. Something like fondness melts through Seungcheol, and he wants to offer Minghao some of the kindness he is constantly bestowing upon others.

“Well? How did the language assessment go?”

Minghao’s suppressed smile breaks open, despite his clear attempt to keep it pressed flat. “I passed.” 

It’s short, but the enthusiasm all but bursting from him says everything he won’t.

It’s infectious. Seungcheol beams, and rests his hands at the small of his back, fingers interlocked, lest he do something stupid like try to throw his arms around the Crown Prince in celebration. “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

Minghao’s ears are tipped bright pink with humble pride, and he mumbles, “Ah, thank you, Seungcheol-ssi...”

“What does this mean for you?” asks Seungcheol.

Minghao’s lips are parted as he blinks.”Well, it means that I am able to take on more responsibility. I can have correspondence with other kingdoms much more easily, without having to use a proxy. And I feel I must insist to the Cabinet that we travel soon, perhaps attending the Conference of Nations next month on our own. I cannot ask that other states send representatives here constantly, the way they do now. What kind of partnership is that? We should give at least as good as we get, and better when we can.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. Diplomatic and compassionate.”

To say it feels like too little and too much all at once. Seungcheol wishes he could choose the right thing to say to smooth out the wrinkle between Minghao’s brows. The responding quiet, pleased smile on Minghao’s face seems genuinely grateful, but something about it is reserved compared to his enthusiasm not moments ago.

Seungcheol catches Minghao’s eye. “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing, Seungcheol-ssi.” Minghao pauses, eyes flicking away from Seungcheol, but back again. Putting trust in his hands. “It’s just… Everything is so _important._ It’s always, ‘Focus, Crown Prince,’ and ‘Now remember this, Crown Prince,’ I…” Minghao’s face scrunches up toward the middle, features concentrating near his nose, and he seems to taste the words he wants to say. He must decide against spitting them out, because he says instead, “I know this is my burden to bear, but—”

“But it’s a burden nonetheless,” Seungcheol interrupts, frowning. 

Minghao looks surprised at his outburst, but the pink around his edges returns, a blossom about to bloom. “I couldn’t say that.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Seungcheol frowns harder, then, and he relishes the way his expression makes the corners of Minghao’s mouth twitch up briefly, tight as dimples in the half-baked dough of his cheeks. “You don’t have to. But if you want to, you can. Tell me, I mean.”

And for a moment Seungcheol thinks he misread things, that despite his care he overstepped already, but Minghao is looking at him again, searching, his hands folded together at his front as they walk, fallen into step with Seungcheol. But Seungcheol can’t find it in him to take it back, because if not him, then who? Has anyone let Minghao speak freely about what he feels lately?

Minghao lets silence linger for the length of the walkway, and as they turn the corner toward his chambers, he sighs. “I just wonder…” He catches his lower lip in his mouth, and Seungcheol swallows, blinks, looks again toward their path. “I just wonder if doing everything right will be enough.”

“What do you mean?”

A sigh. “My mother has been a good Queen. Her mother before that was a good Queen. They have set this unlikely precedent of compassion and have mastered the art of partnership, and I’m floundering through the motions, some poor imitation of them. Am I just supposed to do my best, hoping that I don’t ruin it? How does that follow?” Minghao takes a deep breath, moving his hands from his front to his back.

“Crown Prince…”

Minghao sighs again, more frustrated now. “The fact of the matter is, I don’t get to choose _if_ I do this. The only thing I control is _what_ I do, when it’s my time. Greater kingdoms have fallen at the hands of much greater men than me. What do I do to keep my people safe and happy? What _can_ I do? What if that’s something that’s greater than me?”

Seungcheol stops walking, and moves to the side of the walkway. Minghao’s face is drawn, and he looks close to tears. God, Seungcheol would give anything for that look to melt away. Minghao deserves pillars, something stronger than palace marble to lean on.

“Crown Prince,” Seungcheol says again, and bids his voice to be firm, to make eye contact with his Prince and underscore his seriousness. “The fact that you’re worried about the people who live in this place, and not yourself, or even your legacy, says everything. This kingdom thrives because your mother does what she thinks is right.”

Seungcheol continues, wondering why he’s been allowed to speak so long uninterrupted, “You can’t control what people say about you. I can’t promise you, centuries from now, that you won’t be a chapter in a history book, just another man in power. All I can promise is that I wouldn’t be working so hard to be by the side of someone who I didn’t think was… well. Good.”

Goodness is hard to come by these days, true and genuine goodness, but it emanates from Minghao, glowing from every pore. Minghao produces goodness like carbon dioxide, and Seungcheol wonders when he started to consider himself some judge of character. It doesn’t take an expert to see it, though; just five minutes with Minghao and you wrap yourself in his sincerity, blanketed in it. It shields you.

“You are a good prince, and you will be a good king someday.” It rings true as Seungcheol says it, bone-deep.

“Ah…”

“And besides,” Seungcheol adds casually, pushing back the hint of a smirk. He doesn’t want to give the punchline away so early. “What would it say about my taste if you weren’t?”

It’s like something breaks open.

Minghao giggles, stifled and sudden and surprised like he didn’t mean to, and as he leans forward into his laughter, his face catches the sunlight streaming through the high window, afternoon-warm across his cheekbones. His eyes crescent, and wrinkles grace the top of his nose. Seungcheol can see the lopsided way his cheeks and smile reveal his teeth, sees his shoulders shake with the force of it. The front of Minghao’s hair loosens, cascades over his eyes, soft pieces sweeping over his brow, rich brown glowing golden under the sun, under the thin band of his crown. His whole face is lit up, looking like the first bloom of summer, and it makes Seungcheol’s lips twitch in an involuntary smile.

Something about it catches in Seungcheol’s chest, the cord on a forest trap, and it pulls all the strings in his body tight. As if disembodied, his arm lifts, fingers delicate like holding a sparrow, and Seungcheol gently pushes Minghao’s hair out of his eyes, tucking the ends of the gentle curls back under the warm metal atop his head. His face opens in the light, and Seungcheol gazes for a moment too long.

He shouldn’t have done it. Seungcheol knows his place, is good at knowing it, and the way Minghao looks back at him from where Seungcheol’s hand hovers over his brow is wide-eyed and quietened. His rosy lips are parted, the corners still upturned, like he’s still laughing. 

Perfectly normal. A moment, frozen.

Seungcheol just forgot his place.

Seungcheol pulls his hand back like it was burned, like it was stung by a wasp. He returns his hands to their home setting, laced tightly together at the small of his back, where they are meant to be. “My sincerest apologies,” he says, low and quiet.

“None needed,” Minghao replies softly. His ears are aflame, sweet with a cherry hue, and his cheeks don’t fare much better. 

Seungcheol finds himself disarmed, bō staff to the chest, by his desire to see Minghao’s skin pinken like that again. He holds his wrist with his other hand behind his back, as if to keep himself at bay, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Minghao, eyes downcast, reach up and again brush back the same lock of hair Seungcheol just adjusted.

“Thank you, though, Seungcheol-ssi,” Minghao says, too openly, too honestly, for Seungcheol’s constitution.

“Hyung,” offers Seungcheol, weak.

Minghao’s smile widens, and something fits into place inside Seungcheol, like they were waiting for this. “Well then, hyung, when it’s just us, can we just be Minghao and Seungcheol-hyung?”

“Yes, of course.” _I would like that very much._

“Good.” Minghao cracks open the door to his bedroom, slipping through, lithe and nimble. He looks over his shoulder before he closes it behind himself, and that wide smile is the last thing Seungcheol sees before the wood and wrought iron clicks into place.

They do not touch again, but this is some consolation.

_•_

_Exits, perimeter, headcount, Crown Prince._

It beats in Seungcheol’s head like a drum, thrumming through his veins with his white blood cells, crying protection. First nature, to keep his eyes on Minghao, to ensure his safety. Second nature, all else.

After a few months of training he no longer fidgets, no longer trying to adjust his weighted vest handsfree like a cartoon bear scratching his back on a tree. One embarrassing incident is far too many, no matter how kind the education liaison to the school Minghao was helping construct was about it.

He watches Minghao. Seungcheol finds that part of his role easy. Everything about Minghao is thoughtful, graceful, elegant; Seungcheol is drawn to it, like a moth to a billowing candleflame. Even where he is gangly, a colt too long of limb, Minghao manages to make it all look purposeful, delicately choreographed. Seungcheol watches him, and it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

Minghao seems to want to make it easy, too, speaking quietly to him in their common language despite both Seungcheol’s practice and his own diligent studying. The reason for that is twofold; both reasons are privacy, but one is for the kingdom’s benefit and one is for… his own? Strangely enough. He is in Minghao’s service, not the other way around.

There’s that, and all the _hyunging_ , and rarely asking Seungcheol to bend the rules for him, save for their monthly “practical horsemanship excursions” to the wildflower field at the edge of the kingdom stead. (And even then, one could easily be convinced that they really _are_ practical, even though Seungcheol kind of likes that they aren’t. Minghao deserves some small reprieve from the rigor of royalty.)

Per Minghao’s behest, they do begin to travel, first with liaisons and shortly thereafter on their own, and Seungcheol sees more of the world than he ever imagined he would. Even with their tightly planned agendas and the confines of royal accommodations, seeing sweeping architecture over Minghao’s shoulders, the sun over beautiful landscapes haloing silver and gold over Minghao’s crown, and even just looking over the endless horizon of kingdoms past the gentle peaks and valleys of Minghao’s sleeping face on the plane, makes Seungcheol feel vast, feel endless himself.

He watches Minghao sit quiet on courts, take dinners with consuls and ambassadors, smile politely. He is so considering. When a too-bawdy joke rolls like the threat of thunder out of a man whose constitution has too high an alcohol content, and he jabs his elbow too hard into Minghao’s side as though conspiratorially, Seungcheol marvels at the strange way all he needs to do is slide a hand over his shoulder to coax out a stammered apology from the man and elicit a tired, grateful look from his Crown Prince.

“Do you ever wonder why they don’t cause a scene?” Seungcheol asks quietly in the car on the way back to their accommodations. 

This kingdom, small but mighty, is naturally beautiful even at night, but the downtown lights of the capital city as they move closer to their hotel beside the embassy just remind Seungcheol of home.

Minghao’s eyes are shut, and his face leans against the window, temple to the tinted glass. The mottled neons rainbow his face in flashes and stripes, and he sighs quietly, not in an _I’m sleeping_ way, but in a _I was thinking about it too_ kind of way. “I’m lucky. Not that they do things like that in the first place, but that I come from a kingdom of great power and they still feel comfortable with me.”

Not for the first time, Seungcheol is bowled over by Minghao’s generosity of spirit. He wonders if he would have the discipline to hold his tongue. Considers that maybe he does, noting with a seasick sort of self-awareness that all he needed to do was slide his hand down and tug at that fool’s arm _just so_ to have him buckling to the floor. Tries to push down the wonder what his reaction would have been, had he laid another hand on Minghao. Certainly does not wonder what Minghao’s reaction would have been to that sort of thing.

“Sometimes I hope they see you and realize their behavior is inappropriate, that they feel your presence like I do and are suddenly taken over by the knowledge that they shouldn’t say what they said. That I am not their brother in distaste, an accessory to their white-collar crimes, or worse.” Minghao opens his eyes, but doesn’t turn his head, gaze glittering out and absorbing the flickering streetlights. He seems to resolve to something. “I don’t ever want the people in our kingdoms to think I would excuse something that harms them. I cannot stay quiet any longer.”

•

  
Once a month now Minghao receives the people. The Queen does it, the King does it, and now so too does the Crown Prince. He holds court alone with those seeking an audience, knows what the sight of a looming royal family on their pedestal can do to someone’s resolve, especially as so many of them are asking favor or assistance. That’s a hard thing to do, and Minghao sees it.

He would rather go to them, would rather spend his hours traveling into the city and into the countryside just to save their hours. But the Queen raised an eyebrow at the first mere suggestion of it, so Minghao took his concession where he could. At least he can have this.

So it’s just him, and his guard, and his people.

Seungcheol watches Minghao shake their hands, meet sweeping bows with respectful bows of his own. He scoops babies into his lean arms and coos at them, letting their little hands grab without finesse for the shining buttons on his princely jackets, eyes fond as their tiny fingers wrap around his long delicate ones, laughs as they gurgle at their warped reflection in his crown, turning to have them wave at Seungcheol, who hopes his own face displays the appropriate balance of appreciative and solemn, but fears the pride and happiness may overtake it. 

Before Seungcheol’s eyes Minghao issues produce and noodles, takes down names of people who live in areas of throttled internet access, purchases handmade wares and art from hopeful entrepreneurs, touches the faces of the sick and tells them — no, promises them — that he will do what he can.

If Seungcheol knows Minghao, and he feels that he does, he will keep good on his word.

•

Almost to the first year of service comes Seungcheol’s birthday, and there’s an ache in the center of his chest shaped like the absolutely disgusting birthday cake Jeonghan made him last year, shaped like dinner with his friends, shaped like his family’s faces on their video call early in the morning in the guardsquarters before he rises for the day.

He opens his wardrobe as he dresses, and finds only a conspicuous absence where his bulletproof vest should hang. His stomach drops briefly but swiftly, and he has half a mind to sprint, to close the distance between his quarters and Minghao’s, to ensure his safety, until—

The vest _is_ present after all, just pushed inward, deep into the dark shroud of the back of the wardrobe. In its place of pride is a black box, wrapped in a gold and blue royal ribbon from which it is hung, a notecard affixed to the front. Careful not to disturb the box, Seungcheol peels the card off the front, knocking the front of it open.

_Something strong for someone strong. Happy birthday, hyung. Minghao_

Oh. Seungcheol hasn’t mentioned his birthday for all the other things going on, but he should have known the Crown Prince has his ways. He gingerly takes the box in hand and unties the ribbon, winding it around his hand like training leathers. It’s smooth and silken, not itchy like the party-store ribbon he’s used to, and he likes the way it feels, a balm on the tough skin of his hands, now used to handling weapons but much preferring things like this. 

Seungcheol cracks open the lid, and feels his eyes take in more light as they widen at the sight of a Rolex, silver and gold striping the links and a deep-blue inlay on the face. His thumb smooths over the bezel. No one he knows has ever been able to afford something like this, except for maybe some of the businesspeople he networked with at school. That seems like eons ago. He’s struck suddenly by how little he thinks of it, how little he wants it now. How little he wanted it then, if he’s being honest with himself.

The watch slides smooth over his wrist, and Seungcheol undoes the ribbon from beneath it, using it to wrap around the notecard instead. Minghao’s handwriting is long, messier than he expected, and there’s a smudge of ink in the corner. There’s something imperfect about it that makes Seungcheol smile. 

He slides the card and the box into the drawer beside his bed, puts on his vest, buttons up his shirt, and heads out for the day.

There is no verbal _happy birthday_ in the company of others, the Queen does not acknowledge it during their agenda, but he sees Minghao’s eyes catch the chrome before Seungcheol tucks his hands behind the small of his back, and when they bow in salutation to the Queen and take their leave, Minghao’s fingers twitch at his side. Seungcheol almost wishes Minghao hadn’t started to let his hair grow out. He can’t see the petal-bloom on the edges of his ears anymore.

“Thank you,” Seungcheol says quietly, and catches Minghao’s eye. “I’ve never had something so beautiful.”

•

After a while, they fall into a sort of routine when they can, and the days and weeks and months go by.

Seungcheol is becoming rather good at schooling his face publicly. Practice does improve things. Seungcheol can paste on the most serious of expressions, but not for long; there’s a sense like oxygen flooding his system every time he and Minghao are behind closed doors.

He’s a professional. But it’s difficult for wax not to melt under radiant heat like this.

The sun goes down, and Seungcheol escorts Minghao to the doors of his chambers, and for the first time Minghao hesitates at the threshold.

“Is everything okay, Minghao?”

Minghao’s eyes move up from Seungcheol’s wristwatch, following the planes of Seungcheol’s patient face for a long rest until he asks, “Would you like to come in?”

The first time, it takes Seungcheol aback, something deafening thundering between his ears. “Are you not at ease? Should I call for an evening detail to be assigned to you?”

“No!” Minghao says, too quickly and too loudly for this hour of night. He drops his voice, hand still on the door. “I was just wondering if. If you would like to keep me company for a little while longer. If not… I mean, I understand, we’ve had a long day…”

“I’d be glad to,” says Seungcheol, and that’s that.

Times like these, Minghao loosens, and so too does Seungcheol. As Minghao hangs his jacket, disappears behind his changing screen and emerges in soft pants, presentable in an emergency but certainly more casual than his daily suits, Seungcheol gives Minghao all the privacy and consideration he deserves, resolutely hovering near the entry. He takes the same time to unclip his bulletproof vest and casts it aside, a specter of the weight of the day shed. Tension leaves the outside of his body in waves crashing inward, leaving a strange sort of nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, tides ebbing and flowing. 

Sometimes Minghao will uncork a bottle of wine, lie backwards on his bed, head hanging backward off the edge, and put on music, humming quietly along with the songs. 

Sometimes Minghao will paint, marble floors and hands and feet streaked with vivid acrylic, his crown cast aside, the pouring of paint onto canvas melted down Seungcheol’s spine with color.

Sometimes Minghao retires for the night, and not ten minutes later is knocking at Seungcheol’s door in the guardsquarters to ask quietly if he’s still awake, if he’ll accompany him. He’ll ask if he’ll wander out with him to the botanical balcony with a cup of tea, or head to the library, and they will sit side by side as the air crisps with night. 

And Seungcheol does. Regardless of Minghao’s activity, Seungcheol will be invited inside, and he will elect to do nothing but accompany him.

Stay on duty, as it were.

Professionalism has never been the challenge. Protecting Minghao will never be a challenge.

Rather, the challenge lies within Seungcheol, as he bids himself to maintain professionalism and protection as his tenets, without his heartbeat adding anything else.

•

Seungcheol is twenty-four, and he is always surprised when he is the only guard in the room. He supposes he’s more than proven himself at this point, especially when he and Minghao aren’t out and about and the Crown Prince is just conducting political meetings in the conference rooms in the palace. But to know that there are princes and princesses, royalty and dignitaries of all stripes, who keep their guardship out of the room, always gives Seungcheol pause.

Crown Prince Joshua is one such individual; heir to a kingdom much larger than theirs, he always prefers to keep private company, says it’s good to be able to look in one person’s face without worrying you’re turning your back on a hundred more. The proper way he carries himself weighs heavy on his shoulders. Seungcheol can tell by the way Joshua takes a deep breath and unfolds whenever he and Minghao meet to discuss legislation.

What’s more, Joshua makes Minghao laugh, and they’ve known one another a long time, exchanging knowing smiles and elastic expressions. Their friendship is close, trashy tabloids and netizens always _speculating._ Seungcheol knows it’s not entirely fabricated, knows that Joshua and Minghao used to sneak around together before they were given all this responsibility, knows that in their easy familiarity lives a physical one, sees it in the way they grab at one another, half force of habit, half roughhousing. All that pent-up princely energy. The sight of it sends fondness and nervousness through Seungcheol in equal measure.

Seungcheol also knows that royal affairs are always strong fodder for slow news weeks, especially those affairs of a more personal nature. And beside the fact that Minghao doesn’t have the time, Minghao never asks Seungcheol to wait outside, even when his companions do.

So he knows it’s nonsense. Yet a small part of his mind still wonders.

 _A strong political alliance could be made between their kingdoms through marriage,_ Seungcheol thinks sometimes. _Would Joshua ask for his hand? And if so, would Minghao give it?_

“Interesting,” Minghao is saying. “Very interesting that you say that, Shua, considering last fiscal year your kingdom’s primary export was literally food and drink.”

“Doesn’t mean any of it’s good.”

“That’s for sure,” Minghao snickers.

“Hey! Bold statement coming from _seja-jeoha._ Convince me to eat an integrated circuit, then we’ll talk,” Joshua smirks, and Minghao laughs. He looks like he wants to reach over from his wooden chair and shove Joshua’s arm, and Seungcheol smiles down at his own feet. It’s nice to see him like this.

They’ve been debating for the better part of an hour, and glasses have slowly drained, magenta rivulets still clinging to the crystal, and the flushes on their cheeks are half-wine and half-passion. Their crowns now lie on the table in front of them, too, gold and mahogany, rose gold and cedar. Without his crown to pull it back, Seungcheol can see just how long Minghao’s hair has grown. It’s smoothed out over the years, soft waves only visible now at the nape of his neck, brushing at the back of his jacket collar when he turns his head. Seungcheol finds himself missing it sometimes, wondering if the tips of Minghao’s ears still go pink the way they used to when he could see them.

Probably not. He’s so poised now, a little harder to read when he wants to be.

Of all his schooling in manners and princely protocol, Minghao has always taken best to diplomacy and political affairs, learning what he can about various kingdoms, not just his own, and wielding that knowledge with even more proficiency than when he brandishes a blade. Seungcheol has watched him spend years passionately advocating for the rights of citizens, and he is always awestruck by not just his faculty, but his kindness and compassion.

Tipping his head back, Minghao leans over the back of his chair and looks up at where Seungcheol stands, giving him a grin. Even from this angle his eyes shine, and the expanse of his neck is elegant, and just this once Seungcheol allows himself to meander on his way to meeting Minghao’s eyes. When he does, Minghao’s smile has turned lopsided and considering, and Seungcheol tries to smooth out his features into thoughtful solemnity.

“What do you think, hyung?” Minghao asks.

“Oh, I—”

By now, Joshua has turned in his seat to look at Seungcheol, too, which is one more handsome prince than usual he has to mind. That is rather a lot of pressure.

“—I think Prince Joshua is right,” Seungcheol starts tentatively. Joshua smiles smugly, and Minghao narrows his eyes, looking closely at Seungcheol as he continues, “I think the people of his kingdom have a vested interest in the reputation of their land, so they should have a stake in the production.”

Minghao takes another sip of wine. “I agree, but with the caveat that their value is greater than just the fact that they provide the labor.”

“Of course it is,” Joshua interjects, and as he gesticulates, sounding out his argument and ideas in his careful caramel way, Minghao turns to murmur, cheek against his shoulder, talking into his collarbone for Seungcheol’s ears only.

“Thought you would be on my side,” Minghao mutters, pouting a little for effect.

Seungcheol’s hands twitch behind his back. “I always am, Crown Prince,” he says, and the low, honest way he says it against his own lapel seems to appease Minghao, who crosses his legs at the calf and smiles down at his primly folded hands. He’s trying to stifle the edges of the smile, wrestling with something that makes Seungcheol blink hard to refocus, when he reengages Joshua.

“Now, hang on, Shua-hyung…”

The rest of the hour passes like tennis volleys, and he is not addressed again, but the way Minghao catches his eye conspiratorially every so often crumbles through Seungcheol, rocks of something unnameable sliding down his throat and piling up in the valley of his stomach.

The palace Joshua occupies with his mother is much more intimate than the one back home; Seungcheol likes the sun pouring in all the windows, how golden and warm everything feels between the brick and the concrete and the sea to the west, the salt in the air and the way it curls the edges of Minghao’s hair and ruddies his cheeks, the spring it puts into his step like he’s coming out of hibernation. They’re here for work, of course, namely, “diplomatic and ambassadorial events,” but it feels a little like vacation, at least at first.

The nights stay warm, too, this time of year. The receiving party is out in the courtyard, and, as ever, Seungcheol watches Minghao.

There is other security detail here, Joshua’s own, securing _exits, perimeter, headcount,_ which means Seungcheol can keep more distance, relax a little. _Very_ little, of course, but it does do some work at unclenching the tension that has sprouted over the past few years like fucking demons’ wings from his shoulderblades. Seungcheol can’t turn off the _Crown Prince_ part of the job, nor would he choose to, especially as across the courtyard Minghao chews on the pad of his thumb, haloed in the lighting from inside the hall, breaking away from his fingertips brushing his lips to laugh at something Joshua has shared with the small group around them.

“Wow, look,” Vernon says from beside Seungcheol, lowering his voice and pointing subtly at someone positioned slightly to the side of Joshua, just inside the perimeter of the throng surrounding the princes. Seungcheol looks, because Vernon asked, and is rewarded for his diligence with, “Even _your_ ass doesn’t look _that_ good in dress pants.”

“I somehow feel both flattered and hurt all at once. What unique talent you have, Vernonie,” Seungcheol says flatly, plucking another hors d’oeuvre off his tiny plate and shoving it into the consul’s mouth.

Vernon chews, but he looks a little miserable. “He’s so handsome, hyung, what am I supposed to do?”

Something swoops through Seungcheol’s stomach, that brief unbalanced moment when you slip on a puddle of water but manage to right yourself just in time — there’s an instinct to tear his eyes from Minghao as though caught red-handed, despite it being his paid role to keep watch over him. He chances the moment and flicks his gaze briefly to Vernon’s face, following his eyeline to the attendant beside Joshua, obviously. Obviously.

“Maybe stop hanging off your hyung, much as you know he adores you, and actually go talk to him? I’m hired help, though, so maybe he’ll see you here with me and recognize your generous spirit and whisk you away toward the horizon on the back of a white horse over the sandy beaches or whatever you fucking people do here. This place is like a romance film waiting to happen.”

When he says _hired help_ Vernon rolls his eyes, but instead of addressing it, just scratches behind his ear and shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Chan is just…”

“He is ‘just’ right there, Vernon-ah! You are the consul between our kingdoms! You know how to understand people! Go act like it,” Seungcheol laughs, knocking his shoulder against Vernon’s and giving him a once-over. “You’re handsome, too. And don’t you forget it.”

After a deep breath and a last knocked-back sip of alcohol, Vernon meanders over, and Seungcheol quickly wonders what he was even worried about. The way Chan turns his whole body to face Vernon, leaning back on his elbows on the cocktail table and peering up through his eyelashes to smile at him, makes Seungcheol think that they’ve done this dance before. Perhaps literally.

Beside them, Joshua and Minghao take notice, too, catching each other’s eyes and quirking eyebrows at one another like they somehow orchestrated the whole thing. It’s distinctly possible they have.

Minghao’s satisfied smile and pleased face scan the crowd and find Seungcheol where his own are trained on him, eyes softening at the connection. Seungcheol can feel the corners of his mouth lift in reply, can feel the dark feathers of ache at his back stretch out and flutter. Minghao touches a hand to Joshua’s elbow in salutation before he winds his way across the floor to Seungcheol. Seungcheol’s hand finds its way to his own elbow, a phantom touch, dropping quickly at the sound of Minghao’s voice beside him.

“Having fun, hyung?”

“Always, Crown Prince.”

At the use of his title Minghao huffs predictably, but he’s still smiling. His cheeks are high and golden with his glass of champagne atop the afternoon’s wine, and his body language is easy and comfortable. He looks handsome. It’s been a while since Seungcheol has seen him like this, at ease among the politicking and the crown-kissing.

Minghao is talking into his lapel like always, but it comes out syrupy, his cheek squished sweetly against his shoulder as he looks up at Seungcheol. He gesticulates vaguely toward Seungcheol’s posture. “You look stiff. Is that bothering you?”

Right. The bulletproof vest. Seungcheol doesn’t always wear it, which has resulted in a chewing-out from Minghao on more than one occasion, but if they’re going somewhere new, or just different than usual, Seungcheol feels better when he puts it on. Like he can protect Minghao better. It does seem a little silly to be wearing it now, weighty under his bulky clothes. He trusts Joshua, trusts his small staff and his bodyguards and his attendants, but Minghao is not their priority. Minghao needs to be the priority.

“It’s not bothering me. You know as well as I do that it’s good to be prepared,” Seungcheol says. He raises an eyebrow. “Would you prefer it if—”

“I would,” Minghao interrupts, looking a little distantly through Seungcheol’s chest, boring a hole in his boxy suit jacket and bulletproof vest with his gaze alone. 

Seungcheol laughs. “Okay.”

He is so aware of Minghao’s presence beside him, a hair’s breadth away. His eyes keep roaming the party, _exits, perimeter, headcount,_ and his heart—

“Tell me, hyung,” Minghao starts after a long pause, the mischief back in his eyes, “You see everything. What do you see from that guy back there?”

He’s pointing at a tall, _gorgeous_ man who has suddenly appeared at the back of the courtyard, chatting now with Chan and Vernon, and Seungcheol’s eyes flick back and forth between Minghao’s expectant face and this man. Is this a test? A subtle way of letting Seungcheol know that this broad, leggy model of a man is going to be around a lot more often? Some kind of trial, running a potential partner past the bodyguard to see if he passes muster? Seungcheol needs to get this right. 

As Seungcheol observes, though, the something tight balled up in his chest expands, unfolds like a map, as he catches it. It’s ever so brief, blink-and-you’d-miss-it, but all Seungcheol’s training means he sees deep brown eyes meet the almond-skin of Joshua’s across the room, sees Joshua’s jaw set tight under a becoming blush, sees the Prince’s hand flex against nothing at his side, sees golden honey smirk and aim down at his own feet, miles from his face. Frustration and something unnameable flash across the Prince’s face as he disappears inside the open door leading inside, and the other man presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek, waiting a respectable two minutes before entering the hall as well.

“Who is that?” Seungcheol finds himself asking. It’s rare he is taken by surprise like this, but, as usual, at its center is Xu Minghao. 

Minghao smiles privately, looking up to share it with Seungcheol. “His name is Kim Mingyu.”

The name rings some distant bells, not close enough for Seungcheol to feel the vibration in his feet. 

“And he and the Prince–”

“Mmhm,” Minghao hums coyly. The glass in his hand is still half-full, and he hands it to Seungcheol, who entertains the idea of finishing it for a brief moment before setting it on the tray of a passing waiter.

“It figures,” Seungcheol says, “that someone so skilled in diplomacy can use those skills elsewhere. Matchmaking and treaties are basically the same, right?”

Minghao’s grin is loose, head resting on his own shoulder still. “Two parties at an agreement which is mutually beneficial.” He holds up his hand, his crest ring glinting in the light. 

The sun and the moon kiss in the miniscule golden sky, as always, and Seungcheol raises an eyebrow. “That’s not all, though, is it?”

Minghao looks caught out. But before he answers, Minghao’s eyes run over the throng, lingering on Chan and Vernon talking closely, Chan’s hand on Vernon’s sleeve, fingers curled over his forearm. He smiles at the sight of two women slow dancing together near the band, and it turns a bittersweet mixture of pleased and wistful when his gaze reaches the gilded entry through which Joshua and Mingyu had separately-but-together disappeared. There’s a kindness in his eyes that Seungcheol can’t read, and Minghao turns to face the ocean. Saltchapped wind pushes at the tendrils of hair around his face.

“No, it’s not all. You can see it, hyung, when the risk is worth the reward. It’s not a trade agreement. Love is more binding than any treaty, because it can be easily broken. But you entrust yourself to one another, and that’s the tie. That’s love.”

Seungcheol swallows, and watches Minghao watch the waves crash over the shore.

•

The older Seungcheol and Minghao get, the more acutely aware they are of the weight of things, their itineraries marked to the minute with meetings and discussions and shadowing the Queen in her legislative council and dinners with …whomever. (Seungcheol is glad that he still gets briefing documents sent his way; he’ll never stop admiring how easily it comes to Minghao, remembering names and faces and details Seungcheol could never hope to begin to hang onto.)

Stolen moments of freedom are harder to come by these days.

So Seungcheol is a little out of practice when Minghao knocks on his door in the wee hours of the morning, a secretive look in his eyes that could almost be a smile illuminated in the soft glow of the sky just before dawn.

“Will you escort me somewhere?”

Seungcheol is quite literally not in the business of denying Crown Prince Xu Minghao.

By the time the sun rises Minghao is in rare form, body loose as he dismounts at the edge of the pasture and ties up his horse with a deft knot of rope. When he steps through the thin fencing, body ducking between the wires like a secret agent in a film, Seungcheol is suddenly struck by how Minghao has filled out, shoulders broadened in contrast to his slim waist, the sash tied around his loose white shirt just emphasizing the outrageous ratio. He’s so handsome, finally grown into his ears and his nose and his eyes, which are glimmering with eagerness and the first lick of freedom he’s felt all year. His hair suits him, the laces on his shirt suit him, his large hands on the top of the fencepost suit him. Seungcheol’s gaze lingers on Minghao’s hands, their strong grip careful and delicate, and he catches himself wishing they would linger a little closer.

Guilt melting over his shoulders for noticing, Seungcheol tears his eyes away and busies himself tying his horse beside Minghao’s.

“Come on, hyung, you’re wasting daylight!” Minghao teases, and Seungcheol laughs, petting one last time over his horse’s mane and giving Minghao’s horse a carrot stem from his pouch. “Oh, is that why they’re looking wide in the flank lately? Baekgwang rides a little heavy these days. You’re spoiling him.”

“No, it’s not my fault! It’s because we don’t get out here like we used to,” Seungcheol says, voice wobbling as he clambers through the fencing.

His bootstring catches on the wire and feathers a bit, but with one strong tug he looses it. When Seungcheol rights himself, Minghao is looking at him with a lopsided smile, almost wistful. “You’re right. We used to spend so many of our afternoons out here, do you remember?”

Seungcheol does.

They were so young then. Minghao’s hair was shorter, but so was Seungcheol’s, unflatteringly close-cropped in a wild swing at professionalism. Minghao and Seungcheol would run after the horses, and Minghao would ask if the stablemaster would notice if he were to saddle up a wild horse and take her as his mount. Seungcheol would think, _Of course,_ but Seungcheol would say, “Of course not, you’re the picture of duplicity,” and Minghao would beam at him in a way where Seungcheol knew he would say anything to keep that look shining on his face.

It’s so different now, days full of events and activities and weeks taken to travel from kingdom to kingdom.

Seungcheol doesn’t complain, and he doesn’t think he would if he could, either. All of it just goes to show how generous Minghao is, that he could be leading an even more privileged life than he does, could gild himself in lilies and stay in the palace like his mother wants, but he doesn’t. He pushes back wherever he can, does what he can to _do._

They wander further among the wildflowers as they move toward the dawning sun, ruminating in memory in their comfortable silence. Seungcheol startles at the thundering sound of horse hooves pounding into the grass-muffled dirt, wind whooshing past him and yanking the air out of his lungs too. It feels faster than the train through the city center. A pair of wild horses, manes flying behind them. The royal horses barely snuffle from all their distance away, and Minghao also doesn’t look ruffled. On the contrary; he looks _excited,_ all his enthusiasm bubbling up to the surface.

“Run with me.” 

Minghao’s almost laughing as he says it, asks it of Seungcheol. He doesn’t wait for Seungcheol’s response, he just takes off, long legs in his black trousers carrying him on the wind.

A beat passes before Seungcheol goes after him. They go for a while, and Seungcheol knows he can keep pace, maybe even outpace Minghao with all the training he has under his belt, but at some point Minghao’s face catches the light and Seungcheol stops running, holding his pouch at his stomach as Minghao goes after the horses.

His face looks young, unburdened, as he beams, and all Seungcheol can do is stand there and watch Minghao run, gold and greenery surrounding him like he was born to be bathed in sunlight.

All Seungcheol can do is stand there and love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idol cameos/mentions: minji (jiu) from dreamcatcher, minju from gwsn, sana from twice, nayoung from pristin/ioi, jinah (nana) from orange caramel/after school, yoona from snsd
> 
> thank you for reading!
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	2. oh, when you’re looking at the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from “be the one” by dua lipa
> 
>  **note:** there is mention of a character threatened with weapon (knife) in this chapter, but it is not heavily described, and there are no injuries incurred on the part of the character threatened. if you need additional warnings please do not hesitate to reach out!

“Minghao, you know I’m supposed to know where we’re going, right? As your guard and everything?”

In response, Minghao hums, a placid little  _ mm-hm  _ noise that does nothing to ease Seungcheol’s twenty-five-year-old nerves.

“Crown Prince,” Seungcheol says, voice dropping low, and Minghao whips his head around to look him dead in the eye. His hair shifts, from the movement and a breeze blowing past them, and there’s steel in his gaze, grey-eyed and pink-eared.

_ “Relax,  _ hyung. This is one of my three approved destinations,” Minghao says, and under his playful tone there’s an undercurrent of — not bitterness, per se. Maybe resignation.

Things have gotten harder and harder as Minghao gets older. His shoulders aren’t buckling under his responsibilities, but work and events that had been previously split between two (the Queen and his father the King) are now divided between three. Minghao’s leadership is constantly tested, Minghao rising to the occasion, Minghao really starting to come into his own and carrying the load for his parents and his people. 

With each passing day he carries  _ prince  _ not like it’s a dirty word, but like it’s an honor.

Seungcheol thinks Minghao makes it one.

Seungcheol’s days are as much a whirlwind of dedication as Minghao’s are. It’s more than an instinct, to position himself between Minghao and cameras, between Minghao and crowds, between Minghao and this feeling in his chest. He needs to do his job well so Minghao can do his.

“So, don’t take this the wrong way,” Minghao starts again, ghosting one hand over the line of Seungcheol’s shoulder. Not touching. Never touching. Seungcheol stands stock-still, hands at the small of his back, but raises his eyebrows ever-so-slightly, encouraging Minghao to continue, “but I think it’s high time we get you to a tailor.”

A brief worry flickers through Seungcheol’s head.  _ After all this time, he finally sees that you don’t suit the part.  _ Minghao has never seemed to care before that Seungcheol wasn’t  _ meant  _ for this, just picked him and let him try to grow into it. Not a day goes by Seungcheol isn’t worried that it won’t be enough. 

Regardless, he blinks and nods and lets the satisfied glint in Minghao’s eye lead the way.

In the warm light of the setting sun, the pavement makes way for cobblestone, and the high-rises and offices start to loom in comparison to the brownstones and brick storefronts, their sills blooming with flowers and ferns. This town is always so lovely in the springtime, the patisseries and flower shops reminding Seungcheol of his mother’s favorite trips when he was growing up. She used to say that when he got older he would appreciate it more, but he always thought he appreciated it fine. Walking the streets when the sun hit all the frosted and stained glass just right was beautiful then, and it’s beautiful now.

“I just want you to look good and feel good,” Minghao says quietly, face tucked into his shoulder. Just for Seungcheol.

Heat flares up Seungcheol’s face, and he knows his ears are a telltale rose-pink when he says, “Oh.” Something in his tone makes Minghao look over his shoulder at him, and the gentle smile that spreads across Minghao’s face deepens the blush creeping over Seungcheol’s skin.

“You get photographed next to me every day,” Minghao continues, smile glittering up to his eyes as he pushes open the tailor’s door with one delicate hand, “Is it too much to ask the royal purse to spare a few coins for the best man they employ?”

“Oh,” Seungcheol repeats sheepishly, glancing around the tailor’s shop quickly and checking the door after he steps through.  _ Exits, perimeter, windows, alarm, Crown Prince.  _ “Minghao!”

Minghao’s head pops up from behind a rolling rack of dress shirts. “I’m right here,” he says, lips pursed as he looks Seungcheol over. His gaze is soft but scrutinizing, and Seungcheol feels it melt over him. His eyes meet Minghao’s, and Seungcheol watches as they slide down his body, slow and appraising. Something in him doesn’t think he can breathe about it.

The held breath proves useful. Ever-so-quietly, there’s the  _ click  _ of the workdoor opening, and Seungcheol hears it, taking the step to position himself between the door and Minghao without a second thought.

“And when were you going to announce yourself?” the man sniffs as he enters the room, a much shorter, poised woman stood beside him. 

Taking his crown off to run a hand through his hair, Minghao giggles in a way Seungcheol hasn’t heard in a while, and Seungcheol’s eyebrows shoot up at the sound. Moments like these he wishes he weren’t so easy to read, because the resulting laugh between the tailor and his assistant is not unkind, per se, but hard to parse.

“Oh, your man doesn’t know who I am yet, Haohao? You didn’t tell him? You’re so rude,” the tailor declares, his words casual and tone formal and language flawless.

Indignant, Seungcheol splutters, which makes the woman’s friendly smile widen.

“It was a surprise,” Minghao mutters with a pout, and, wow, that’s something new. Seungcheol swallows.

At this, the tailor’s eyes soften, and he regards Seungcheol anew, dipping his head in a polite bow and holding his hand out to shake. “I’m Junhui, and this is my apprentice Jieqiong. It’s a real…  _ pleasure _ to finally meet you, Seungcheol-ssi.” His tone is playful but genuine, and his teeth show when he smiles, and Seungcheol feels a little bit of tension ease out of his shoulders.

He knows  _ of  _ Junhui, of course. Never met him personally, but Seungcheol was briefed on his high security clearance due to his close relationship with Minghao. It makes sense that Minghao trusted him enough to drop by like this, but the pang of worry in his chest still hasn’t gone away. Seungcheol’s not sure Junhui is quite what he expected, and he’s supposed to be good at quick assessment. Maybe it’s not that he’s failing at it, but that Junhui is unusually good at evading categorization.

“Stop teasing him, gē,” Minghao whines, and Junhui’s smile turns wry.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Junhui sighs, “I stopped trying to take your job when we were children and your mother said princes can’t wear short pants as adults. Why start back up now when I’ve done so well for myself?”

He gestures with one sweeping hand to the shop at large, and Seungcheol turns down guard mode, sliding the dimmer to a low level so he can relax and take it in.

Swathes of unusual fabric are draped across tall marble shelves, filled with bolts of their own. It looks haphazard in a meticulous sort of way, which probably fits Junhui pretty well. Gold thread shimmers in the light of the giant chandelier, not made of facet-cut crystal or colored glass but raw crystals, a veritable rainbow of quartz and seaglass and probably other rocks that Seungcheol cannot possibly begin to identify. 

Seungcheol has always been less of an artist and more of an art appreciator, anyway. It’s what makes Minghao’s hobbies so fascinating to accompany him for, whether he’s purchasing his people’s works or creating pieces of his own. Minghao is all bold strokes. Seungcheol, not so much.

Distracted by the thought, Seungcheol only faintly hears, “...just so awful in the rear,” before snapping his attention back to the men apparently discussing his body right in front of him, which is usually something worth paying attention to for someone like Seungcheol, who is both a royal bodyguard and a man interested in men. 

“I know,” Minghao is sighing, and he gestures to Seungcheol’s lower half with a muted wave, almost shy, like he’s hopeful Seungcheol misses it. He doesn’t, but Seungcheol is practiced at discretion and internalizing things he wonders if he should mention, so he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Junhui catches Seungcheol’s gaze, though, and smiles, a curious look in his eye where smile lines should be. “All right, then, royal guard, let’s make you sexy. Step up.”

Well, he’s more than welcome to try. Seungcheol steps onto a round platform by the mirrored screen and promptly doesn’t know where to put his hands.

“Here, hyung, give me your coat,” Minghao says, holding out his hand for Seungcheol’s jacket for once. Seungcheol stares at it, the gold and silver of his rings glinting where Minghao is palm-up. With a quirk of his eyebrow Minghao opens and closes his fingers,  _ gimme, _ and only then does Seungcheol move, shrugging off his jacket and handing it off.

“Well, that’s part of why his proportions look so weird.”

Seungcheol can’t stop the wounded look that draws across his face as Junhui and Jieqiong flit around him in circles, and Jieqiong clicks her tongue quietly. “Of course. Oppa is wearing the vest.”

Softly, but with determination, Minghao says, “Take measurements both with and without it.” It’s not a question, and Seungcheol tries to read his face from the mirror, but can’t quite manage it. His arms are crossed, though, long fingers restless on his own bicep.

“You got it, gege,” Jieqiong grins becomingly, and the nails on her deft, tiny hands click quickly on her tablet while Junhui arranges his measuring tape.

It goes quickly enough, neck and shoulders and torso and waist, but Minghao hardly moves, eyes laser-set and more focused than Seungcheol has seen in a long time. He almost looks… displeased? Seungcheol can’t place it.

“We don’t have to do this,” Seungcheol offers against the inside of his shoulder once he unstraps the weighted vest and sets it aside, and Junhui taps his hand gently but firmly against Seungcheol’s shoulderblade. “Sorry,” Seungcheol mumbles, even as he startles at the touch.

Tilting his head, Minghao says incredulously, “We absolutely do. You need pants that fit you. That flatter you.” Minghao snaps his mouth shut and looks away.

Trying not to think about that too hard, Seungcheol looks down at his legs with a frown. “What’s wrong with these pants?”

Junhui and Jieqiong both snort from where Junhui is taking Seungcheol’s calf measurements, and Minghao looks up, gives Seungcheol a lopsided smile. “I don’t even know where to begin, hyung.”

It’s just clothes. Why is he so nervous about this?

Swallowing under his frown, Seungcheol opens his mouth to say… something, and Minghao tilts his head in the other direction, so he closes his mouth again with a tight-cheeked smile.

“If your pants fit better you’ll actually have better range of motion,” Minghao says, and disappears directly behind Seungcheol’s reflection. “If they’re too big like this, the extra fabric impedes your movement and actually makes you worse at your job. So it’s not all for me. Well, I suppose that means it is somewhat for me, but, you know.”

Seungcheol freezes with a start when Junhui’s tape measure circles his thigh and slides up the inseam of his pants to take the circumference of his hips and backside. He kind of wishes he could see Minghao’s scrutiny, settle his nerves. He tries not to also wish Minghao was the one taking the numbers through these final measurements.

“Okay!” Junhui claps his hands together presentationally. “I think I have some samples that I can work with to get you out in something passable today, and then I’ll come by the palace with the rest later this week when I’m done with the custom pieces.”

_ The custom pieces? _ At that, Seungcheol turns quickly to give Minghao the most withering look he can muster, and almost stumbles when the tape measure catches around his hips and thighs. Minghao’s eyes flick up from the tangled tape measure to meet Seungcheol’s, and his cheeks are pink, even though his face is aloof.

“Yes, hyung,” Minghao says with an air of finality. He says nothing more, glancing up at Junhui with a quirked eyebrow.

Jieqiong hustles into the fitting room, arms carefully draped with suit pieces, the weight of them seemingly Atlaslike, if the strained look on Jieqiong’s face is anything to go by. “All right, in you go,” Junhui says, shooing Seungcheol into the dressing room when Jieqiong walks back out, her breaths only a little labored from the effort.

Once he enters the dressing room, Seungcheol goggles at the three suits hung gorgeously on the wall. He spends a few moments tracing his fingers over the fabric, marveling at the thick, expensive feeling of it under his fingertips. The way old calluses on his hands don’t catch on the embroidery, but instead smooth over the designs, fields of wildflowers winding over the shoulder of one jacket, another a royal wash of blue and gold. Even the simplest one, Seungcheol sees, has a beautiful cobalt lining peeking out from the breast pocket. Junhui is obviously talented. 

The apprehension Seungcheol feels ratchets up when he realizes he has to… actually choose one. The simple one feels safe enough, so he undoes his admittedly wrinkled button-up shirt and pulls on the fanciest t-shirt he’s ever seen (you can wear a t-shirt with a suit?), followed by the rest of the outfit. 

Not having a mirror in the fitting room itself seems purposeful, but at the moment it’s frustrating. Regardless, Seungcheol is in the business of conquering new things, and Minghao trusts him to do this. Wants him, for whatever reason, to feel like he deserves something like this. So Seungcheol smooths out the trousers over his thighs, luxuriating for a moment in the fancy material, and takes a deep breath before swinging the door open.

There’s a sharp intake of breath when Seungcheol steps out of the dressing room, tugging anxiously at the lapel of his jacket. 

When he looks up, all six eyes that greet him are big and glittering. He chances a glance at Minghao, whose eyes, Seungcheol can tell, are trying not to waver from his face, but dart down and back up his body like this new image of him is too much to absorb at once. The suit jacket feels like it’s straining tight against his chest, because at this moment it’s a little hard to breathe deeply.

He laughs nervously, an instinctual reaction, and it’s like Minghao sees  _ him _ again, sees  _ Seungcheol _ and not this… other person whose body he’s suddenly inhabiting. A smile spreads over Minghao’s face, and it makes Seungcheol smile too, bashful.

“Hello,” Minghao says, a new introduction, and Seungcheol grins wider.

Faintly, Seungcheol thinks he registers something like  _ jacket shoulders aren’t quite broad enough _ in a Junhui-like voice from somewhere behind him, but Minghao is stepping closer, onto the platform in front of the mirrors. 

“Are you ready to see?” he’s saying.

He holds out a hand, ostensibly to help Seungcheol up onto the platform.

Seungcheol’s nerves spike as he stares at Minghao’s hand, palm-up, big and delicate and bejeweled. Familiar and totally unknown.

“It’s just me,” Minghao says. 

And he’s right, it’s Minghao, but there’s no  _ just _ about it. 

Seungcheol nods, and reaches out his arm, feels the jacket fabric shift over his shoulders as he lets Minghao’s hand close around his.

It’s stupid, to feel a swoop in the pit of his stomach when his hand is enveloped, to barely suppress a tremble at the feeling of Minghao’s cool, smooth skin against his rougher fingers for the first time. Hand in hand. Seungcheol feels a beat pass between them, lingering, wonders if Minghao realizes this is the first time he’s touched him in all these years at his side. Tries to memorize the feeling.

But with his next breath, Seungcheol steps back onto the platform and lets Minghao position him, each touch like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, too light and too fast to catalog. One tentative hand at Seungcheol’s waist – thinking better of it – fluttering up to a shoulder – changing his mind again – then withdrawing entirely and knitting his fingers together behind his back, Minghao’s eyes meeting Seungcheol’s in the reflection in front of them.

_ Oh, wow. _ “We go together,” is what falls out of Seungcheol’s mouth at the sight of himself, now broad-shouldered and sleek next to Minghao. 

It’s like he sees himself for the first time, too. What few centimeters he has on Minghao are more apparent now that he’s standing up straight, and his eyes dart between the reflection of perfect, poised Minghao, and the image of this new Seungcheol he has to absorb. Hair falling in his eyes a little, he combs it away from his face with one hand.

A quiet laugh, no more than an exhale or a puff of air, pushes out of Minghao. “Yeah. We do.”

“I’m going to pretend that  _ any _ of that was a thank you, and humbly say ‘you’re welcome,’” Junhui sniffs, disembodied, and Seungcheol startles.

Minghao smiles about it, his face pulling a little shy. Seungcheol looks down at his feet where they’re pigeon-toed in his dress shoes.

“It’s good?” he asks.

Eyes wide and tone incredulous, Minghao and Junhui say, “Yes,” in tandem.

Jieqiong rolls her eyes goodnaturedly. “Can we try the next one, oppa?”

Seungcheol looks to Minghao, who nods, and he shuffles in and out of the next suit. By the time he’s in the third one, Minghao’s eyes are moons in full, and Seungcheol feels like he’s standing taller, bulletproof even though his vest lies on the chaise lounge a few steps away.

“Does it… need anything? It feels so fancy,” Seungcheol considers, wildflowers growing up one side of his chest and winding around his arm. He sees now why the shirt underneath is so simple, but it feels like it’s missing something.

After a beat, Minghao says, confident, “I know what.”

Seungcheol blinks and he’s alone, and moments later Minghao reappears, wooden box in hand. He meets Seungcheol’s eye, questioning. Seungcheol holds out his hands as if to say,  _ I trust you. _

And he does.

After that, Minghao practically takes over the appointment, draping necklace after necklace over his collarbones, and Seungcheol feels Minghao’s rings brush over his hopefully-not-that-flushed skin, the hammered gold of the royal crest nudging at his throat when he swallows.

Minghao makes a soft, considering sound in the back of his throat, reaching up to run his thumb over Seungcheol’s earlobe, gentle like he doesn’t know he’s doing it. “Have you ever thought about piercing these?”

“I’m thinking now,” Seungcheol laughs, short and nervous.

Flames lick the sides of Seungcheol’s face, heat radiating from his skin. This is not what he imagined any of this, anything at all, to be like. He memorizes each graze of Minghao’s hands, prays he doesn’t forget the way it feels, even as he knows it’s going to end.

Humming thoughtfully, Minghao reaches up with both hands to fix Seungcheol’s collar. Now that Seungcheol knows the weight of Minghao’s hands, he’s hyperaware of the ways he pulls back to prevent himself from leaning into the touch.

“It feels weird,” Seungcheol says, adding hastily, “All of this. I don’t recognize myself.”

“That’s exactly it, though,” Minghao murmurs as he tucks a swan of fabric into Seungcheol’s breast pocket, thin, pretty fingers dipping under the piping to smooth it out. Seungcheol can feel them. “It might look different, but underneath it all… it’s still you. That’s my favorite part. This just reflects what’s already there.”

With a gentle pat Minghao’s hand presses over the pocket, fingers splayed, and Seungcheol wonders if he can feel his heart beating underneath it.

  
•

For all his prince’s strength, Seungcheol is unsurprised when Minghao gets tired of pushing back. He knows a thing or two about resistance, about gritting your teeth and building it up, from all his own training. He also about the ways in which Minghao never complains, just takes the brunt of it, lets the frustration simmer inside him, and instead of letting it turn him cruel, he expels it in the form of  _ helping. _

But there is a point for everyone where your best doesn’t feel like enough anymore, and for Minghao it seems to come in the springtime, reaching for the sun where it peeks hopeful through the clouds.

Seungcheol walks with him through the palace after conferring with the Queen, watching their feet as they descend the steps into the grand foyer and out into the receiving hall, early as always in anticipation of the long line of people waiting outside. Minghao doesn’t ever take his leave until everyone has been seen.

“There have to be people who can’t make it to me who need help or who want to share their lives with us, and no one is listening. No one is listening to me,” Minghao says, and it’s quiet and even and practiced. Like it’s not for Seungcheol, but for his parents, for the Queen’s benefit. He did not make it known during the morning’s agenda meeting, now taken only once weekly and as needed in between, but it’s obvious it has been weighing on his mind for some time.

Seungcheol needs no such convincing. “What would you do?”

Minghao runs his hand along the bottom rail of the huge bulletin board he set out for anyone to advertise their wares, look for roommates, apply for work, or seek counsel if they can’t stay to ask him in person. He collects the all documents by the end of each week, but he glances for now at the current assortment, sharp eyes flicking over all the papers haphazardly strewn, taped, and stapled to one another. His thumb peels up the corner of a poster from a local band seeking a drummer to uncover a colorful flyer. Minghao’s posture straightens impossibly more, and he uses the edge of his nail to pry up the staple so he can peel the page off the board.

“Hyung, look,” Minghao breathes, holding the flyer out for Seungcheol to read, their shoulders knocking together.

_ Children’s Day Festival! Fairground rides, food stalls, carnival games. Free entry, ride/game tickets available at event,  _ followed by the date and details of the festival.

Seungcheol can see on his face what Minghao wants. He also knows he certainly will not ask it of the crown.

All he says is, “Minghao…” Not chastising or judgmental. Leaving a door unlatched and seeing if Minghao will try the handle.

Minghao stares at the paper, bright colors in his beautiful hands like when he paints, before looking up at Seungcheol. Minghao’s eyes glimmer with emotion. Oh, dear.

He kicks in the door.

“I want to see my people,” Minghao says, and there’s a catch in his throat, just this side of pleading. “I can dress casually, I promise I’ll wear my mask, no one will know it’s me.”

Seungcheol pauses, almost laughs. “Like… like in  _ Aladdin?” _

“Yes,” Minghao says seriously, and clasps one of Seungcheol’s hands in both of his own. Seungcheol is trying not to get too used of the feeling of Minghao’s skin touching his, which is easy enough when his whole spine tingles every time they touch. “The last time I went to the Children’s Day festival was when I was a child myself. How am I supposed to lead this kingdom when I don’t know anything real about them? My mother talks about how important it is to hear them, but she hasn’t spent unscheduled time in the kingdom in years. I want to  _ see _ them. Please, Seungcheol? Please, hyung?”

He’s asking, not commanding. He never issues orders to Seungcheol. But Seungcheol can tell it means a lot to him. In his mind, Seungcheol was put on this Earth to do exactly two things: protect Minghao, and make him happy.

And the way his whole face lights up when Seungcheol says, “Okay, Minghao,” is worth every second of consideration and planning this will take.

And it takes a  _ lot  _ of consideration and planning.

Princes do not take days off, so finding some spare hours in the day takes quite a lot of rearranging. Minghao enlists Seokmin and Nayoung’s help in “amending some scheduling conflicts,” which isn’t even a  _ lie.  _ It all just underscores how adept Minghao is at negotiation and partnership and just… all this prince stuff that Seungcheol can’t even begin to wrap his mind around.

All of that comes to a head the morning of the festival. Seungcheol is greeted early in the morning with a knock on his door, quick and sharp. When he opens it, the bare, shining face that greets him almost knocks him out, so much so that Seungcheol can barely find the faculty to step out of the doorway and usher Minghao inside before anyone sees him. 

He can’t tear his eyes away from the sight before him. This was a terrible idea.

“What do you think?” Minghao says eagerly.

All of a sudden Seungcheol is struck by a memory, a sly grin flickering over a young Minghao’s face as he tugs his hoodie cords tighter against his chin. The last time Seungcheol saw him dressed this casually was a good four years ago, maybe? That day in the café, when Minghao chose him and Seungcheol let himself be chosen.

There’s something warm like fresh baked bread that flickers through Seungcheol at the sight of Minghao, grown taller and broader over the years, face slim and beautiful, shining over the luxe cotton-jersey blend. He looks soft, and sweet, and Seungcheol feels that this is the most dangerous Minghao has ever been. Seungcheol has stood at his side and seen Minghao closely as he developed his swordsmanship, blade comfortable in hand like an extension of his body; as he debated freely with the monarchs of adjacent kingdoms in countless diplomatic meetings; as he tamed wild horses like he was one himself.

But this, with Minghao’s big hooded sweatshirt loose on his sinewy frame, tucked into sturdy jeans, and when he lifts his arms, flinging them out wide like a statue, Seungcheol has to tell his brain to tear his eyes away from the band of the underwear peeking above the waist of his jeans. This?

He looks like everything Seungcheol knows he can’t have, and it makes his heart skid to a stop in his chest, Minghao’s fingers tangled in the reins.

The rhythm of Seungcheol’s heartbeat sounds like  _ imagine just having a lazy day in, imagine if you still lived in an apartment, imagine Minghao curled up on the couch beside you, imagine your arms winding around that narrow waist, imagine kissing that smile off his beautiful face—  _

“It’s too much,” Minghao is saying, worrying at his lower lip.

“No, no! It’s great,” says Seungcheol, reassuring. “You’ll blend right in. Just make sure you keep your mask on.”

“Of course, hyung.” Minghao is very bad at masking his excitement about this, and Seungcheol finds it unforgivably infectious. He could refuse Minghao nothing.

It’s a good distance’s drive to the part of the city hosting the fair, several hours over in the green by the museums and park, surrounded on its edges, fenced in by the city skyline, and as Seungcheol drives, he counts himself lucky that Minghao’s excitement seems to have settled enough to let him nap on the way over. The sun is well in the sky now, and pulls warm like a blanket over Minghao’s face, eyelashes casting shadows and feathering prettily over his cheekbones. 

Seungcheol is glad to be driving, if only for the distraction. He’s not sure if it’s better to be talking or to contend with all of this silently. 

He supposes he contends with all of this silently every day.

“Minghao,” Seungcheol murmurs to rouse him. “We’re here.”

Minghao stirs, soft in his street clothes, and stretches out, looking out the window and gasping. “We’re here?” He fishes his facemask out of his pocket and secures it over his face before he bounds out of the car, eyes like saucers taking in all the lights and sounds in front of him. He looks small amongst the buildings and attractions like he doesn’t have jurisdiction over them all, but the look in his eyes is huge, like the freedom he feels is bolstering him. He looks infinite.

“Where would you like to go first?”

Minghao’s smile goes all the way up to his eyes as they wander through the booths, the corners crinkled. “Aren’t these games rigged?”

“Mm. Some.” The whole affair does look a little rigged, if he’s being honest, but a strange, calm kind of confidence settles over Seungcheol’s shoulders when he looks between the games and the prince. This is his sort of domain. “But not all of them, if you know what to do. Oh, let’s try this one,” Seungcheol suggests, pointing at a game with balloons and darts.

“Only if you let me bet on you,” Minghao teases, fishing in his pocket for the money needed to play. 

His rings glint in the light when he hands over the cash to the game operator, who vacantly stares at Minghao’s palm a beat too long before pocketing the money and handing Seungcheol his three darts.

It’s just javelin, just target practice like any other day. Minghao’s eyes weigh heavy and curious on Seungcheol’s shoulders, and he pushes up the sleeves of his sweatshirt for better range of motion. Five years ago Seungcheol lost games like this, but he was a different person then. Now, with all the strength training and discipline and Minghao behind him? This will be easy. 

Seungcheol pulls his wrist back, takes a breath.

One, then two, then three darts deflate balloons, great latex grapes turning to shriveled raisins before his eyes. With each sharp  _ pop  _ the worker grunts with suspicion, as though Seungcheol was the one playing him, before begrudgingly offering him a prize of his choice.

“Which one do you like?” Seungcheol asks Minghao, whose glittering eyes are trained on him like the needle of a compass.

Minghao weighs his options, and, to Seungcheol’s surprise, he chooses three small stuffed animals instead of one of the large prizes. When he thanks the game operator, he only receives a narrow-eyed huff in response, but Minghao is quickly beaming up at Seungcheol, cradling his little herd of sheep in both arms as they wind through the grounds, and Seungcheol is effectively bowled over by the force of the fondness and affection swooping through his body.

“It’s Children’s Day,” Minghao says as if it’s an explanation, and Seungcheol at first isn’t sure what he means.

He begins to get some idea when Minghao nudges Seungcheol out of the way, his lean arms winged out with sheep, skinny elbows prodding at the meat of Seungcheol’s biceps as he shuffles toward the picnic-style seating among the food stalls.

Seungcheol is trained to look at things a certain way, seeking to affirm particular statistics and factors in a crowd, and he sees what he sees in the throng because he knows to look. 

It appears that so too does Minghao, but in a largely different manner.

“Hello,” he’s saying, bowing to where two small children are eating with their parents. He acknowledges the adults, seemingly having a silent conversation with his eyes alone, then addresses the children. “My friend here won me these prizes, but a whole flock like this is far too many sheep for me to mind! Would you like to take care of these friends instead?”

Their little faces light up, and they turn to their parents, who smile meekly and nod.

It isn’t until Minghao sets two of the sheep onto the bench next to where the children are swinging their little legs that Seungcheol clocks what Minghao must have seen minutes ago: the children’s shoes worn flat and threadbare on the bottom, the family sharing a modest meal brought from home instead of purchasing from any of the booths, the way they’re dressed up a little, like this is a special occasion. 

It would be easy for someone to find the whole thing a little charity theatre, condescending or speaking out of turn, but they would not see as Seungcheol does the grateful look on the parents’ faces, that mixture of embarrassment and thankfulness at the generosity of a stranger. Their children are young, see nothing but two casual young men enjoying the day and two brand-new toys they get to cherish where they otherwise may not have.

As they leave, Minghao waves away their awkward thanks, his shoulders not back as they are in the palace, but instead sloped low toward his chest with shyness of his own.

“Was that the right thing to do?” Minghao murmurs, muffled through his mask.

Seungcheol pauses, holding his tongue. Minghao’s hands are cradling the last remaining sheep with a possessiveness that almost echoes that of the rambunctious kids at the table. Seungcheol eyes him and speaks carefully and honestly. “I think it was a kind thing to do.”

“Those are not the same,” Minghao says, but it’s lighter just from that, almost teasing.

“No, they’re not. But it’s a lot more than others would have even thought to do.”

Minghao hums thoughtfully, but says nothing more about it. 

Hours feel like minutes as they browse pop-up booths from local organizations, vendors, food and drink and wares, and after some time — and a baozi break — the sun has turned the corner from rising to falling. Minghao has long since fallen into step with Seungcheol, their elbows brushing in their sweatshirts, walking closely together among the masses. Minghao is loosening with each passing hour, his excitement waning little, and it is all Seungcheol can do not to reach out and take his hand.

Two blushing girls, having to Seungcheol all the manner of a giggling couple, clamber out of a photobooth, clustered close like two penguins around the drop where the photostrips print out. When he and Minghao slow as they pass the booth, Seungcheol doesn’t think much of it, but Minghao’s breath hitches next to him in a quiet way, and before he knows it Seungcheol finds himself digging in his pocket for his wallet.

If Seungcheol is diligent about getting out quickly before anyone has the opportunity to grab the photos, there’s no danger. It’s just a photobooth. Of course they can do it, if it’s what Minghao wants. 

The festival signs behind Minghao’s head are a rainbow haloing his soft hair. Despite his better judgement, despite the fact it’s just another way he’s feeding that desperately hungry thing inside him like he owes it something, Seungcheol wants to commemorate today.

“You want to do it?” Seungcheol asks, and when he looks at Minghao properly, his eyes are shining between the loose fringe of his hair and his mask. 

“Really, hyung?” The way Minghao says it is incredulous, like he wasn’t going to ask for fear Seungcheol would say no, but in that same breath Minghao is haphazardly grabbing for his sleeve, fingers closing around Seungcheol’s hand as if by accident while he tugs him into the booth.

Before Minghao pulls the curtain closed, Seungcheol meets the eye of the taller girl, who beams at him with one arm around her much shorter girlfriend’s shoulders. He hopes she can tell through the mask that he’s smiling back at her, wishing the couple well on their date. Seungcheol knows that feeling, the unspoken kinship and acknowledgement and solidarity and  _ happiness _ of seeing someone in the wild who’s just like you. 

Even if this isn’t a date. Not for him.

The booth is cramped, as expected, and when Minghao settles back in after closing the curtain it’s stuffy with late-afternoon, vinyl-y humidity, but Minghao doesn’t seem to notice, leg bouncing where he’s pressed thigh to thigh against Seungcheol. His stomach vibrating just as fast as the movement, Seungcheol feeds his money into the machine, and the screen lights up with options. Minghao reaches out, scrolling through all the borders with one hand, little sheep in the other, his usual clutter of rings doing little to weigh it down. 

“Oh! They have so many choices,” Minghao moans, overwhelmed, tugging his mask down under his chin. “Hyung, help me choose.”

Seungcheol blinks, startled, and drags his eyes away from Minghao’s furrowed brow and pursed lips in the mottled light of the screen when Minghao looks to him. “Let me see, then,” he says, pulling down his own mask, and nudges at Minghao a little so he can select one. “Do you like this one?”

“That’s great!”

The instructions flash, and Seungcheol is suddenly tasked with making quick physical decisions, which, by definition, is what he is quite literally always meant to be doing. He’s pretty sure Captain Yoona doesn’t have this in mind when she runs drills, though. But there’s a little countdown on the screen, and Minghao is so close, his lip caught between his teeth, and Seungcheol needs to do  _ something.  _

So he says, “A silly pose first,” and Minghao instantly crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue, which is so startlingly sweet that Seungcheol doesn’t even pose, jaw hung open on the idea of a laugh. The first flash goes off.

“Oh, it’s so fast!” Seungcheol frets.

“A cool one,” Minghao suggests, and Seungcheol looks to him for guidance, as ever, throwing up a peace sign for good measure before the screen flashes again.

With each new take Minghao is giggling and tugging at Seungcheol’s sleeve, which pulls their faces in close together. It’s contagious, the sound pealing through Seungcheol’s body like bells in the square, and he’s laughing too, this time. He finds that he’s powerless to stop the giddiness overtaking him.

Minghao is just so  _ close _ to him.

There is nothing in Seungcheol’s mind but this. His cheek pressed against Minghao’s, the line of his thigh flush with his, the easy, unfamiliar sound of Minghao’s fullbodied, giggly laughter. It’s been so long since he’s heard him laugh like this, free and loud, and Seungcheol wonders how he ever thought this could have been a bad idea.

When they tumble out of the booth themselves, masks resecured, there’s early-evening windchill that cuts through the aisle, flags fluttering in the distance as they wait for the pictures to print. Minghao is shuffling back and forth, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his body language speaking impatience all over. It’s only another minute until two copies of the photostrips fall into the drop slot.

He and Minghao each pick up a strip, staring at their laughing faces developing before their eyes. Seungcheol can’t look at it too long in present company lest he vibrate out of his skin, and tucks it inside his wallet next to the birthday notecard from all those years ago, soft from wear and frequent rereading. He makes the mistake of looking at Minghao’s face instead, and there is a heartbreakingly tender look in his eyes as his thumb runs over the margin of the photostrip.

“You ready?” Seungcheol asks. He is resolutely looking anywhere but at Minghao until his heart stops hammering like this.

“Yeah,” Minghao says, tucking the photo deep into the front pocket of his jeans.

The colors and sounds of the festival swirl around them, games and booths and scents bright in the air, and Seungcheol is following Minghao, as ever.

“Oh, no!” Minghao cries suddenly, and it sounds so worried Seungcheol’s hand flies to the small of his back.

“What is it?”

Minghao looks upset, and stares into the grass like he can bore a hole into it with his gaze alone, the way Seungcheol tries to dry out his eyes when he’s trying not to cry. Oh, God— “I left my sheep at the photobooth,” he confesses, voice tight.

“I’ll run and get it. We only just left, it’s bound to still be there,” Seungcheol says reassuringly, withdrawing his hand from Minghao’s back and turning his head to see if he can spot the stand. The little cartoon character on the booth winks colorfully just a few rows away, and he tries to give Minghao a soothing look with his eyes alone. “I’ll go right now, I’m sure it’s there.”

“Okay,” says Minghao with a watery look of his own.

A few long strides is all it takes to make it back to the stall, where the little sheep is waiting patiently on the bench inside the photobooth, just where Minghao left it. 

It looks proud and vapid in equal measure, its shiny-starry-blank eyes huge in its tiny sewn face, all lit up in the neon of the fairground when Seungcheol ducks back out. God. Seungcheol tucks the sheep into the pocket of his hoodie, letting its dumb little face peek out of the side so it can breathe. It’s not  _ made  _ particularly well, but it is so cute. Just looking at it makes Seungcheol smile, thinking about its brothers in the hands of happy children and knowing Minghao put them there, thinking about Minghao looking at him like he did something wonderful just by winning them in the first place. 

He wants to keep that look on Minghao’s face, wants to be someone worth leaning on.

“Seungcheol?” 

The panicked voice cuts through the crowd like a thrown blade, and Seungcheol’s stomach drops. Something is wrong. 

“Seungcheol!”

He takes off at a sprint toward the other side of the booth, his every breath roaring in the vortex of his mask. It sounds like  _ you are supposed to stay by his side, how could you have left his side, especially here, especially now, exits, perimeter, headcount, Crown Prince, Minghao, Minghao, Minghao,  _ as he rounds the corner and spies Minghao illuminated in rainbow and terror, mask tugged messily down around his chin and fear in his eyes. His eyes are scanning the crowd, looking for Seungcheol.  _ I’m right here,  _ Seungcheol’s mind cries,  _ I’m so sorry. _

There’s a stranger with his arms around Minghao, one hand in the front pocket of his hoodie, pressed against Minghao’s stomach, which would be enough on its own, but.  _ He has a knife,  _ Seungcheol’s gut screams with anguish, and he goes against every instinct he has as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and pretends to text, walking casually from a distance as though he’s going to pass them.

Minghao is strong, Seungcheol knows this. He is thoroughly trained in martial arts, nearly as proficient in weapons as Seungcheol, but he is also kinder than anyone else in the world, and even now Seungcheol suspects he will not try to incapacitate him, even if his  _ life _ is at stake. 

Seungcheol is not so generous.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind he wonders what his younger self would think of him now, his peripheral vision focused with rage and fear and ringed in scarlet. His eyes are trained directly on the man attempting to coax Minghao away from the throng, trying to pull him between booths with little fuss. Minghao has stopped shouting, and it is all Seungcheol can do to hope that it is because he saw him, that he knows he’s coming. That he will never let harm come to him as long as he’s alive.

Seungcheol has eyes on them, and watches as Minghao and his assailant drop into the narrow shadow between a duck-flip game and a stall selling bubble tea. His opportunity.

He dashes to the opposite side of the booths and listens quietly to the man’s harsh tone relishing his threats and, thank heaven, the voice of his prince, quietly offering anything he needs. Not in exchange for anything, least of all his life, but the same way he speaks with the other people who seek him out; knowing they need something and wanting to be the one to give it, if no one else can.

Minghao’s voice is clear — Seungcheol suspects the knife has been withdrawn into a different position — and he  _ moves,  _ quickly shifting the flap of vinyl covering his opening, and sees Minghao’s eyes catch him over the shoulder of his attacker, whose back is to where Seungcheol has snuck behind.

Perfect.

Seungcheol doesn’t speak (this isn’t superheroism, this is trying with all his might to fix the worst mistake of his life), just loops his arms quickly into the man’s elbow pockets, yanking them back harder than he might have really needed to. He hears the man shout, the joints of his shoulders pop, the knife ring on the metal bones of the booth where it tumbles to the trodden grass, and Seungcheol spins him, reels his arm back and fucking clocks him in the jaw.

The angle must have been perfect, the one time it really counts, because his eyes roll and his knees buckle, and he’s down.

“Minghao, Minghao, are you hurt?” Seungcheol pants, crouching over the fallen attacker’s body, one knee on his throat as he searches him for more weapons, fishing out his wallet and taking pictures of his ID. He has a staff badge stuffed in his pocket — another person running the games — and Seungcheol feels sick to his stomach. He flexes his thigh, pulling back a little from where his knee is digging into shuddering windpipe.

“Seungcheol,” is all Minghao says, and it sounds painted with a true, visceral relief.

“Are you hurt,” Seungcheol repeats, and this time it is not a question.

Minghao shakes his head, arms wrapped around himself. “No.” His jaw is set tight, and his mask is nowhere to be seen, and Seungcheol briefly wishes this fucking guy were more than unconscious. He thinks,  _ This is what my training was for. _ He thinks,  _ I should not have had to use it. _

He does the only thing he can do about it, and he calls Soonyoung.

“Soonyoung, I have someone apprehended in Jinzhou.”

Soonyoung’s voice crackles over the line. “Why are you in Jinzhou? Is Minghao with you?”

“Just send someone!”

His voice must sound appropriately grave and urgent, because Soonyoung makes an affirmative noise and his cell phone beeps  _ call ended,  _ signaling to Soonyoung his location.

The crown has people everywhere, police partners and current detail and former royal guard in city centers, and Seungcheol is not surprised when (quickly, but not nearly quickly enough) someone he knows arrives to take the assailant into custody. 

He’s standing now, heel resting warningly on the assailant’s barely moving chest. Minghao does not cower, would never, but Seungcheol is positioned in front of him so that anyone who comes upon them in the dimming evening light has to deal with him before even catching a glimpse of the prince.

“Seungcheol?” Joohyun says as she ducks in, in plainclothes with her police badge in hand. Her eyes catch first on Seungcheol’s wide stance, broad shoulders shielding Minghao from view, and then on the man out cold on the floor. She bows toward Minghao, then frowns. “Tell me everything.”

Seungcheol finds he can’t say much to the situation, and he lets Joohyun’s partner, also former royal guard, remove the man from the scene. 

Minghao steps closer to Joohyun to give his own account, murmuring quietly with her while she takes notes. Seungcheol does not move with him. Despite it, Minghao’s hand finds the elbow of Seungcheol’s hoodie, long fingers catching the fabric and pulling him a step closer, so Seungcheol stays.

“Thank you, Crown Prince. From our initial findings it appears we have an opportunist working alone or with minimal partnership, but we will update only your Highness with any additional information we find,” Joohyun says solemnly.

“Thank you, Joohyun-ssi. I appreciate your discretion,” Minghao says, and it is accompanied by a sigh. He turns to Seungcheol and says, “Let’s just go.”

The sun is down at this point, and Minghao is practically stalking toward the car in the fair lot, Joohyun following them until they get there. Seungcheol appreciates the gesture, is glad for extra eyes to protect Minghao, but the back of his neck still prickles a little. There is something so humiliating about it, despite the fact he used to train with Joohyun, her narrow features matching Yoona’s in a sisterly kind of way. He is already hyperaware of the ways in which he has failed.

Seungcheol opens the hatchback of the car like the drive-in movie theater when he was a child, and tries to give Minghao a small smile. “We can sit in here for a while.” Minghao gets in, nodding along with Seungcheol in acknowledgement to Joohyun, and Seungcheol tugs the door shut behind them, grateful when it slams that the rear seats in the vehicle are kept folded down.

In an uncharacteristically furious manner, Minghao tears off his mask and hurls it against the floor of the car.

“He saw my ring,” Minghao spits, and the vitriol and guilt laced together in his voice make Seungcheol feel sick. He sounds so resolute, so despondent, when he pleads, “I forgot to take off my ring, Seungcheol.”

“This is not your fault,” Seungcheol insists. 

_ It’s mine,  _ he does not say. He doesn’t want Minghao to expend precious energy reassuring him falsely. 

Meanwhile, Minghao is tugging hard at his ring, twisting it roughly.

“Stop it.”

He doesn’t, his jaw tightening as he yanks at it with enough force to practically rip off his finger.

“Minghao, stop!” Seungcheol growls. Now who’s issuing commands?

He pulls the stuffed sheep out of his pocket and places it between Minghao’s tense hands. He watches as Minghao’s fingers flex, then hesitate, before moving delicately over its fluff, combing over the soft woolen fur with heartbreaking gentleness. His back slides against the seat as he moves to sit, hunched over, almost collapsing into himself, a bright dwarf star with a sheep plushie at its core.

“I can’t even do this much, hyung. I can’t even have this with you. How am I supposed to make any real difference if I can’t leave the palace for anything my parents don’t see fit, if I can’t be amongst them? How am I supposed to say that I understand their problems if I’m kept away? Can’t I be… How am I supposed to… I just wanted—”

Seungcheol uses his hands to brace himself against the roof of the car to scoot in beside Minghao. “A normal day.”

“Yeah.”

_ This was not a normal day. He is not a normal boy. You cannot let your guard down like this again. You cannot let him down like this again. _

“I… I had a really good day with you,” Minghao laughs quietly, suddenly. His fingers are busy playing with the horn of the little sheep, and his voice sounds genuine even despite the way it still wobbles with fear.

Seungcheol does his best to manage another smile for Minghao, and feels the burn of the photostrip like a ghost through his wallet, the glossy paper a rectangle of heat against his body, against his heart.

Minghao is right, as he often is. It was a good day. One of the very best. Seungcheol wishes he could remember that. Hopefully he will when all of this panic wears off.

“You did well,” Minghao is saying, “I’m safe. I’m safe, you did well.” He keeps repeating it, like he almost doesn’t believe it himself, but he’s got a hand reached out toward Seungcheol like he’s a wild-eyed animal, and Seungcheol tries to let the words soothe him, but he can’t.

He blames himself, plain and simple, for allowing Minghao to get into a situation like this. He let his desire run away with him, imagined for a moment that he and Minghao could have a day like anyone else, let himself have a glimpse of something he can never have, and he almost paid the ultimate price.

To have something, so close yet so far, is disconcerting. Seungcheol is completely thrown.

His heart is beating in his ears, roaring like thunder under his skin. His whole body feels like heartbeat. He’s almost afraid to even blink, expression probably too open, the adrenaline coursing through his body too fast for him to try and mask his emotions.

There’s too much at stake. Seungcheol is suddenly, viscerally aware of the myriad ways in which he could lose Minghao, at any moment.

“I— I promise, Minghao, I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you,” Seungcheol says in a rush, like he won’t get the chance again.

Minghao’s eyebrows knit together, more upset-looking now than he’s been all day, even after everything. “Hyung…”

Shaking his head, Seungcheol says, more insistently, “I mean it. Please, Minghao.”

Swallowing, Minghao nods. 

It doesn’t feel like enough. Seungcheol is used to walking the line, used to knowing when he needs to step back and let things happen without him. He’s good at knowing his place. It needs to be said, so Seungcheol says it.

“If you want a real guard, I understand, I’m not—”

Minghao scoffs. “You can’t honestly believe after all this time—”

“You deserve—”

“No,” Minghao interrupts firmly. Royally. His fingers encircle Seungcheol’s wrist as his voice drops low, serious. “I don’t trust anyone like you. I don’t want anyone by my side but you.”

And that inspires undue relief in Seungcheol, eyelashes wet with fear and devotion and, sure, tears, it’s been a long fucking day, and Minghao is just  _ looking  _ at him, more searching than anything, and suddenly Minghao’s arms are wrapped around his neck, tugging him in close for a hug.

They’re so close, closer than Seungcheol thought they’d ever be, and Seungcheol can hear Minghao’s quiet breathing in his ear, short inhales and long, trembling exhales. Turning slightly to the side, Seungcheol’s stomach tenses as he tries not to lean in, his core working to keep him from pressing too broadly against Minghao, but he doesn’t pull away. Not completely.

“Don’t drive home tonight,” Minghao says.

“Okay,” Seungcheol concedes in a whisper. He doesn’t know if he could, anyway.

The rise and fall of Minghao’s chest is soothing, though, the cadence smoothing out as minutes tick by. Seungcheol pulls his head back a little to find that Minghao has fallen asleep, all the adrenaline from the day probably finally catching up with him. His eyelashes flutter at the shift, but he doesn’t stir, so Seungcheol gently turns a little further, wrapping an arm around Minghao’s narrow little waist to position himself between the lock of the door and Minghao. He rests his head in the crook of Minghao’s chest where it slopes up into his neck, and takes a deep breath. 

Not wanting to close his eyes, Seungcheol fixes his gaze on the light filtering through the tint of the windows, watching intently as it dims, and dims, and dims.

When Seungcheol finds himself stirring awake some dark hours later, they are still holding each other, Minghao’s arm slung over his chest, hand at Seungcheol’s shoulder. He starts, panicked, and Minghao makes a soft noise, his eyes scrunching further closed before opening tentatively.

“Hyung?”

Heat flares up Seungcheol’s face and he gently but firmly worms his way out of Minghao’s arms to sit up properly, more flustered than he’s felt in a long time. “Oh, sorry! Sorry!”

He keeps stuttering out vague apologies. In Seungcheol’s mind, they’re for what happened the evening before and for not keeping watch and for falling asleep and for waking up in Minghao’s arms and for liking it, but Minghao’s sleepy face is looking up at him with this unreadable smile, Mona Lisa in a Balenciaga hoodie. 

Clamming up, Seungcheol holds out a hand for Minghao to sit up, too, and the pressure of Minghao’s fingers against Seungcheol’s is brief but strong as he pulls himself perpendicular. Minghao stretches out his limbs after a long night all curled up on the floor, and Seungcheol decidedly does not trace with his eyes the pretty length of Minghao’s neck as he rolls out a crick, eyes closed and groaning quietly. 

Now is most certainly not the moment.

“We should return to the palace right away, Crown Prince. The Captain of the Guard will no doubt be expecting a full brief,” Seungcheol says, maneuvering from the back of the car into the driver’s seat, partially so he can ignore Minghao’s usual frown at the use of his title. Seungcheol waits a beat before adding, “I expect that she will also have more than strong words for me when we get back.”

“Luckily for us, my words are stronger,” Minghao says matter-of-factly, like nothing can touch him. Like nothing can touch  _ them,  _ Seungcheol’s brain helpfully supplies, clinging irritatingly to Minghao’s use of the pronoun as though it’s something he can keep.

Sometimes Seungcheol wishes he had the luxury of that kind of confidence, of knowing that his word can easily become action. Minghao wields it well, with wisdom and care, using his ever-increasing power in the pursuit of justice and compassion. It’s what makes him a good prince, and a good man. So good it hurts.

“I need to take responsibility for this,” Seungcheol says.

There’s a sense of finality to it that is eating him alive, but he knows as he says it that he means it. Seungcheol has nothing if he doesn’t have his conviction, if he doesn’t have his word.

If he doesn’t have Minghao.

“All right,” Minghao says begrudgingly, moving to clamber into the front seats with ease but wincing at what must be an ache in his joints, stretching out a leg in his jeans. His hands flex, cracking his knuckles by accident, and he glances at Seungcheol’s hands.

Seungcheol shoves his hands in his own hoodie pocket. “How are you feeling?”

“Besides unused to sleeping on the floor of a car? I’m fine.”

The joke falls flat.  _ Fine,  _ for Minghao, rarely means what it seems.

“Do you remember when we met?” Minghao asks quietly, as though Seungcheol could forget.

“Yes.”

Minghao twists the cord of his hoodie around his thumb, winding and unwinding it. “I don’t know if you saw it, but I was so scared that day. I was… what, nineteen? And he had no idea who I was but he acted that way regardless.”

There is a roiling feeling below the repression, somewhere deep in Seungcheol where his hands grip the wheel. He’s glad he isn’t driving yet. He puts his hands in his lap instead.

“Today they knew it was me. I put civilians, families,  _ children  _ in danger just by being here. Being careless. I put  _ you _ in danger. Are you even wearing your vest?”

“Minghao, this isn’t your fault,” Seungcheol repeats, heat flooding his skin. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

In Seungcheol’s periphery, Minghao turns to face Seungcheol. “I cannot expect you to mind me every moment of every day. You deserve a life all your own. I have been thoughtless, to keep you to myself. To hold you at my whim. What of your life? What when you want a wife, or— or a husband? How can I expect you to put me before them?”

Seungcheol cannot say what he desires so deeply to say, cannot do what his entire being wishes to do.

“To be with you is my choice, Minghao. I know what’s at stake.”

“Nothing should be  _ at stake, _ Seungcheol. You need to be safe, too. Why didn’t you wear your vest? Why did you do this for me?” Minghao’s voice wavers. “If you were gone I don’t know what I’d—”

“I can’t lose you,” Seungcheol interrupts. “I can’t.”

He feels stripped bare, tendons and muscle and heart all laid out for Minghao to see, and he cannot look Minghao in the eyes. If he does, he’ll probably cry. Not a very becoming look on a royal bodyguard.

So instead, he turns the key in the ignition and begins to drive, and does not use his periphery to see if Minghao is still looking at him.

•

Some days, Seungcheol’s guardsquarters being between Minghao’s chambers and the training facilities feels like a special kind of torture, Seungcheol preparing for the day and standing at the ready just to see the Crown Prince returning to his chambers after finishing swordsmanship, a loose grin and a sweaty brow gracing his delicate features first thing in the morning. An awfully overwhelming sight.

Other days, like today, Seungcheol finds it a blessing. He can slip away with little fuss to work out on his own, to blare music from his cell phone in the corner of the mirrored room and best the heavy duty bag, over and over, picturing his blows sinking into a smirking face and greedy hands, someone whose name Seungcheol doesn’t know but whose face he will never forget, whose existence had better keep an impressive distance from Minghao. 

From Seungcheol, he means. Far away from Seungcheol.

He shakes his head clear, going in for another solid round of punches when the bag shifts unnaturally, swinging to the left like a door slammed open, and he shrieks.

Soonyoung’s eyes are wide as he shouts from the other side of the bag, “Hey! It’s just me! Did you not hear me calling you?”

He had not. 

Blinking, Seungcheol clutches at his heart with his gloves. “No! Jesus, Soonyoung!”

“You said my name twice,” Soonyoung cracks, because he can never help himself, and Seungcheol rolls his eyes, pushing his hair out of his face with a clumsy, gloved hand. “Yoona-nim told me you might be here.”

Seungcheol sighs and takes off his gloves. The sound of the velcro is deafening as he says, “Yes, the Captain usually knows where I go to hide with my tail between my legs.”

A sharp exhale huffs out of Soonyoung’s nose. “Yeah, you came to beat yourself up by proxy by beating the shit out of the punching bag. The poetry of it is not lost on me.”

Rolling his eyes, caught out, Seungcheol says, “Why are you asking noona about me, anyway?”

“Because I care about you?” Despite the tone of it turning up like a question, it doesn’t sound sarcastic, and when Seungcheol looks up, Soonyoung is looking back at him with his eyelids dropped, earnest.

“Soonyoung-ah…”

“Seungcheol-hyung,” Soonyoung mocks gently, coming around to wrap his arms around Seungcheol.

It feels nice. Seungcheol lets out a long, long breath, and Soonyoung squeezes him just a little, wringing out one more shuddering exhale.

“How could I have let that happen?” he asks quietly, almost rhetorical.

Soonyoung rests his head on Seungcheol’s shoulder. “You know it wasn’t your fault. He knew what was at risk, but he did it for everyone. You know better than anyone why he does the things he does. His life doesn’t matter more than anyone else’s.”

“To me it does!” Seungcheol snaps, correcting quickly, “It’s my job to protect him. The life of the Crown Prince is the future of this kingdom.”

The silence lingers.

He spent hours mulling over the Captain’s words, her strict discipline giving way to the solemn acknowledgement that he has been the only one to protect a member of the royal family singlehandedly, without incident, for over four years. 

_ “Failure is only permanent if you let it eat at you, and if you refuse to learn from it. I’ll admit that your lack of training worried me at first, but that was years ago. The Crown Prince is safe, and continues to be, and will continue to be, so long as he is in your care. Trust yourself now, Seungcheol.” _

“You won’t quit,” Soonyoung says quietly. Kindly, kinder than Seungcheol feels like he deserves right now. Soonyoung knows it, too, if the pitying look he gives Seungcheol is any indication.

It’s unthinkable. “No.”

“Because you love to torture yourself, you utter masochist,” Soonyoung says lightly, knocking his shoulder against Seungcheol’s.

“No! It’s because I am a  _ professional  _ and don’t let my feelings get in the way of my work!”

But therein lies the trouble. They already have.

“Minghao trusts me. I cannot take advantage of his trust like this.”

“Hyung, it’s been four years. If Minghao hasn’t stopped trusting you by now…” Soonyoung trails off, making a small noise and starting over. What he says next is spoken carefully. “If you think you’re the only one made weak by love you are an even bigger fool than I thought.”

Seungcheol has never said it out loud before. To hear it drop from someone else’s lips so simply, like it’s an inalienable truth, sends shockwaves through his body. Has he been so obvious all along?

“You act like your feelings are the enemy of your work, hyung,” Soonyoung says. “But they make you better at it. Having feelings for Minghao makes you more mindful of him, more in tune with what he does. You are stronger for it. You are strong together. Why don’t you see that? Why do you punish yourself for it?”

Seungcheol doesn’t know.

Seungcheol says nothing, and Soonyoung lets him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idol cameos/mentions: jieqiong (kyulkyung) from pristin/ioi, joohyun (irene) from red velvet
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


	3. i won’t let you down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from “be the one” by dua lipa

Things are quiet, after, and Seungcheol tries to stay quiet, too. Focused. The way he always needs to be.

As promised, Joohyun and Yoona and Soonyoung are discreet (though Seungcheol is not surprised when Seokmin leaves vague, kind notes for him and Minghao both. For all their isolation, they are grateful to know Soonyoung and Seokmin, and that they know each other. There is a saccharine-sweet toothache Seungcheol gets when he sees their fingers twined in the courtyard, and he always manages to finagle a small cake from Sojung in the kitchens for their anniversary.); they swear up and down that the only member of court who knows what happened that day is Minghao. The Queen and Minghao’s father are none the wiser, per their colleagues’ word, and Minghao trusts them, so too does Seungcheol.

Weeks go by, and it’s a blur of routine, of Minghao sitting on council, of receiving diplomatic guests, of the walls of the palace, the halls of the palace, the atriums and cofferings and conference rooms and quarters of the palace. All this blue and gold and stone-white liminal permanence. They do not leave. It feels like purgatory.

What’s worse is that Seungcheol can see how miserable Minghao is, that every time he looks to Seungcheol like it’s force of habit there’s a flicker of something unreadable on his face that is quickly whisked away by a demure smile, a princely façade. 

_ That _ feels like hell.

Summer begins, befittingly, and everything is sweltering, exacerbating Seungcheol’s metaphors and weighing heavy on his body — though the fact that he hardly takes off his vest but to sleep certainly doesn’t help things. The sun beats down relentlessly, and Seungcheol is sweaty and miserable, and Minghao is miserable and glistening, which is so unfairly attractive that it makes Seungcheol feel overwhelmed with guilt, and something  _ has  _ to give. They can’t go on like this.

He wants to say,  _ Nothing is different.  _ He wants to say,  _ You can still lean on me. You don’t have to be alone.  _ He wants to say,  _ We can go anywhere you want. You don’t need to stay here. You don’t have to suffer because of me.  _ He wants to tell Minghao everything. But it would be unfair to put that on Minghao, to pile onto the already precarious volume of duties and responsibilities and  _ weight  _ that he balances every day. That is Seungcheol’s load to bear, not the Crown Prince’s.

The tension is unbearable. 

It’s late evening now, and Minghao’s wrist runs over his face and neck, wiping sweat off his brow, and Seungcheol aches.

“Would you like to come in?”

Minghao’s voice is so quiet, so gentle, Seungcheol almost feels that he said it by accident. A slip of the tongue.

“Would you like me to?” Seungcheol volleys, feeling a bead of sweat run down the back of his neck, making a landing in the collar of his shirt. His hair sticks to the nape of his neck, but the promise of the cool breeze whispering through Minghao’s room is not the only temptation.

“Yes,” Minghao says simply. 

He won’t make eye contact, but his long fingers curl and uncurl around the handle of the door, a nervous tic that’s a holdover from his youth. A direct channel from Seungcheol’s heart to his mouth opens, bypassing his brain entirely, and he replies, “Then yes.”

Seungcheol cannot see Minghao’s expression for the way he turns his head, ducking it down to face away from him while he pushes the entry open and slips inside, holding the heavy door cracked with one arm.

When Seungcheol pauses at Minghao’s threshold before stepping inside, the way he always does — did, he supposes, all those weeks ago when they were inseparable, even after the guise of duty was dropped; Seungcheol can be honest enough with himself now that it was no sense of work ethic that drew him into Minghao’s chambers night after night — and Minghao tilts his head, wordlessly saying,  _ go on, for goodness’ sake,  _ the way he always does — did — it is disarming.

Once inside they fall into routine like they never paused, Minghao pouring wine into glasses and Seungcheol removing his shoes, his jacket, his button-down, unclipping and shrugging off his vest, leaving himself in his slim tee undershirt.

There is something that’s held in the humidity and the thickness of the evening that Seungcheol feels, even when the physical weight leaves him. It usually feels like the figurative weight follows, but not nearly so much recently. The quiet of Minghao’s room does ease some of his worry, because they’re safe and secure, and Minghao is at ease, too. There’s a thrum of anxiety palpable in the air, but Minghao’s gauzy curtains billow with night breeze and do some work at cooling Seungcheol, at least physically.

There’s a silence punctuated only by the sound of Minghao rustling behind Seungcheol’s breathing. To calm his nerves he tips back too much wine too fast, almost laughing thinking about Minghao’s face if he would have seen it. He half wishes he had, and wonders if the glass of wine that disappeared with Minghao behind the screen is also steadily draining.

Seungcheol nurses his wine and wonders if everything is just as it was when he was here last, wandering over to the sitting area next to Minghao’s bed and making to take a seat, until his eyes catch something new.

That stupid, sweet little sheep is tucked into bed, rumpled bedclothes pulled up to its lack of neck, and Seungcheol can’t bear to look at it. He turns his focus to the little table at Minghao’s bedside, upon which lies a book, blue-bound with gold type, stars spangling the cover. 

Seungcheol knows how Minghao stays up to read, sometimes, mostly for work, biographies and law, the theories and political implications keeping him awake. Minghao working, looking down at the pages, and Seungcheol working, looking at Minghao.

This book looks like reading for pleasure, though, small and shimmering like the stories Seungcheol read as a child. He runs two fingers over the spine, and draws them back when his fingers nudge the cardstock bookmark. 

But it isn’t a bookmark at all; Seungcheol tugs at it gently so as not to lose Minghao’s page, and comes face to face with himself, laughing, cheek pressed against Minghao’s in the photobooth, shy smile, eyes dripping with that feeling Seungcheol tries so hard to hide, immortalized in four frames on paper. Minghao’s copy of the photostrip, carefully flattened out where it had wrinkled in his jeans pocket. 

Something swirls through Seungcheol when he slides it back between the pages,  _ Xiǎo Wángzǐ  _ sparkling up at him hiding a warm little secret, a potent cocktail of hope and ache and guilt and something else warming through him.

“Minghao?” Seungcheol calls as he sits down.

“Mn?” he calls back vaguely. It’s kind of muffled, like he’s in the eye of a hurricane of fabric, and Seungcheol feels heat flood back to his skin thinking about Minghao tugging off his princely layers mere meters away.

Seungcheol can’t defend himself, so he goes with honesty. “Just checking to make sure you’re okay.”

A tiny snort leaves Minghao, and he emerges from behind the changing screen a little reddened and sleep-soft. His hair, meticulously styled this morning for meetings, is tinseled with flyaways and his bangs are flopping into his face, the product doing its best to cling on despite the heat and the tousling. It’s somewhere in the middle of princely and casual, just a little disheveled, and it tugs hard at Seungcheol’s stomach. He feels himself smile.

“I’m always okay, hyung.”

At that, Seungcheol rolls his eyes, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s okay to not be okay, Minghao.”

Minghao pulls a face, not particularly princelike, then shrugs, moving to sit across from Seungcheol in the chair at his vanity. “About what happened, at the—”

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol repeats for the thousandth time. It will never feel like enough. “I feel so guilty.”

“Seungcheol.” Reaching out, Minghao touches Seungcheol’s knee, and Seungcheol quietens, eyes searching. “I know,” Minghao says, “I wanted to thank you.”

That’s impossible. “For what?” 

Minghao laughs the way he does when he knows something Seungcheol doesn’t, one of his favorite Minghao laughs, and despite himself, Seungcheol smiles down at his feet. It’s been a long time since he’s heard that.

“I feel like I can count on one hand the times I’ve actually thanked you for everything you do for me.”

Seungcheol looks up, then, brows pulled together. He has never asked for Minghao’s thanks, never needed his gratitude. 

And maybe that’s it, maybe Seungcheol has always just been the recipient of Minghao’s work and duty and kindness, like everyone else in this kingdom. Maybe he has weaved a tapestry of all the threads of hope he’s picked up over his last four years of service, and of course it’s beautiful, it’s his life’s work. But it’s heavy. He can’t hang it alone.

“I’ve been feeling guilty myself, actually.”

Seungcheol furrows his brow even deeper. “What? Why?”

“I know these past few weeks have been hard on you. Being cooped up like this. I hate it too. I hate…” As if embarrassed by his candor, Minghao looks away, his hand tightening on Seungcheol’s thigh slightly. “I hate so much that I can’t reach my people, and I hate that I’ve felt like I cannot lean on you because I feel guilty that you had to — had to save me, when all I’ve wanted was to lean on you, monopolize your time, the way you have always let me do.”

“Minghao,” Seungcheol starts, praying his voice stays even. His watch weighs heavy on his wrist, that physical reminder of his own devotion given by Minghao all those years ago.  _ The only thing I would change is to have better stayed by your side. _

“Wait.”

Minghao leans over to open his vanity drawer, hand still on Seungcheol’s thigh to keep himself steady. 

When he wobbles back into his seat, he’s holding a box. It’s small and wooden, handpainted in bright colors, and Minghao pulls his hand back then from Seungcheol’s leg to turn it over in both hands, thumbs tracing the edges. He undoes the closure on one end, and when he clicks the lid open, Seungcheol can see the bottom edge bears Minghao’s signature, a tiny scrawl in black against the field of greens and blues. From inside, Minghao withdraws a chain, his fingers delicate with the gold.

“It’s well known that the crest is for the royal family only, but… to me, that includes you. This is some small thank you, for everything you’ve done for me, and everything you are to me. You don’t have to wear it if it embarrasses you, but...”

Eyes cast downward at the necklace in his hand, Minghao’s ears are pink as he blushes, voice trailing off, and he’ll call it the fault of the wine that all Seungcheol can think about is reaching out and running the pads of his fingertips over his elfin ears, warm and sweet. About tracing his cheekbone and feeling the flush of alcohol and honesty thrum under Minghao’s skin, glowing now like the moon on marble.

Continues Minghao, “It’s. It means, no matter what happens, I am with you, and you are with me. I— You…” Minghao swallows and holds out the necklace, and Seungcheol takes it, fingers brushing against Minghao’s on the way. “You are always here when I need you. And when I want you. You’ll always have a home with me. You make this palace feel like home.”

Tears spring to Seungcheol’s eyes, unbidden.

Gold chain, delicate and strong, and a small flat pendant, gold with stone and enamel. The royal family crest, the seal of the kingdom. A moon rising in the sky to greet the sun, eight tiny flags flying underneath. He turns the necklace over in his hands, letting his thumb glide over the inlaid stones of the sun and moon and the glossy enamel of the symbol. The crest, always gracing Minghao’s finger on his own ring, now for him, too. To lie upon his chest. Where his heart beats.

He already knew he would do anything for Minghao. But this… 

Seungcheol is overwhelmed by the visceral, physical reminder of one of the few unflinching truths of his life: 

He is desperately in love with Crown Prince Xu Minghao.

“Seungcheol-hyung,” Minghao says, close suddenly, and the words are casual, the tone is informal, but his voice is bubbling up out of him with something terrible and nervous, the same roiling way Seungcheol’s stomach feels.

Looking up from where the necklace is clutched like a lifeline in his hand, Seungcheol whispers, “Yes, Minghao.” 

And it is not a question.

Minghao leans in and closes the gap, getting both hands on Seungcheol’s face to draw him close, lips pressing against Seungcheol’s like he’ll never get the chance again. He kisses with purpose, soft fingers curling around Seungcheol’s jaw as their mouths move together. Seungcheol _melts_ into the touch, and both his hands find Minghao’s slim waist, necklace pressed between them, so he can kiss him back the way he’s dreamed.

Deep and slow and pent-up, Minghao kisses him again and again, soft and repetitive as though he can’t help it, and Seungcheol is filled to the brim with the hope he hasn’t been alone in the wanting. In the loving.

Kissing Minghao feels like all the nerves in his body go calm, like the last piece of flickering, sputtering wiring has been connected and all his systems are finally humming smoothly. He had wondered, in the most hidden parts of his heart, if it would be breathless, but instead it is gentle in its depth, lips sliding against each other softly, the corners of Minghao’s mouth lifting in a smile against Seungcheol’s skin. 

Seungcheol was born to kiss Minghao, and he’ll gladly do it, day after day, until he leaves this mortal plane.

As Seungcheol’s fingers span the width of Minghao’s waist, tangled as they are in the chain of the necklace, Minghao’s own fingers tighten on Seungcheol’s jaw, causing him to gasp quietly into the kiss. Minghao pulls away just a little to giggle at the sound, and Seungcheol feels his face heat up even more, and his heart beat even faster. 

He would quit his job as guard, play the prince’s fool instead, just to make Minghao laugh like this always.

“What?” Seungcheol pouts, and it comes out breathier than he intended.

Eyes soft, Minghao slides his hands into Seungcheol’s hair and grins. “Nothing,” he says. “You’re so beautiful.” 

All Seungcheol can feel are Minghao’s short nails scratching at the nape of his neck, causing Seungcheol to let out a tiny squeak. “Please!”

A pleased, smug look passes over Minghao’s face, and he kisses him again, hands trailing everywhere; tracing the shell of his ear, wandering down his neck, smoothing slowly over Seungcheol’s biceps, sliding back toward his pectoral muscles, an appreciative hum (aimed at his  _ physique,  _ of all things, Lord above) muffled between their mouths. Minghao’s hands are gentle, but they don’t stop moving, blades of grass in the wind. Seungcheol can feel his heart beating double time in his chest under the glide of Minghao’s fingertips, and—

“Ah!” Seungcheol gasps, freezing in place and trying not to squirm against Minghao when Minghao’s thumb brushes a little circle around his nipple over his undershirt.

At the sound, Minghao’s eyes sharpen just a little, and something like heat tugs behind Seungcheol’s stomach. He could watch Minghao’s composed visage change like this every day for the rest of his life, would soften and bend under his hands now that he knows what it feels like, knows he will never forget this.

Eyes bright, Minghao takes Seungcheol’s hand in his, just looking at him. Seungcheol swallows and breathes deep, lets Minghao’s face rearrange itself into the way he always looks at Seungcheol, fond and familiar, which is a lot to manage in this new context. Minghao’s fingers catch on the necklace gripped in Seungcheol’s hand, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. 

Silently, he frees the chain from Seungcheol’s hand, deftly undoing the clasp and fastening it around Seungcheol’s neck. Despite its delicate size, it feels like the crown jewels themselves are draped over his collarbone. He can honestly say he never thought about that before. He knows this is infinitely more valuable, anyway.

“I like it,” Minghao says, fingertips tracing the chain against Seungcheol’s skin, raising goosebumps under the golden rope.

Quiet as anything, but from deep within: “Me too.”

Walking backwards, Minghao pulls him by their joined hands toward his bed.

“Is — is this okay?” Seungcheol asks, eyes wide, even as Minghao moves of his own volition to lie back in his own bed, his beautiful skin flushed and teeth worrying his bottom lip. Seungcheol wants to check in, even when he's vibrating out of his skin with want, his face searching Minghao’s when they pause for a moment just to breathe. He wants to be sure.

Minghao arches his back, and Seungcheol thinks this is the moment his life ends. Pulling the lump of the little sheep out from behind his body, Minghao laughs, and the breathy, light sound of it vibrates through Seungcheol, sent straight through his heart to his stomach and sending him alight. Minghao looks endeared, and Seungcheol feels shy, but he lets Minghao smile at him and say, “This is very much okay. Come here?”

Nodding, Seungcheol lets Minghao tug him by the hand into another kiss, lets him maneuver him into bed, legs slotted together, and asks softly to let him take care of him.

“You always do,” Minghao says quietly, sure, pulling Seungcheol’s undershirt out from where it’s tucked in, cool hands laden with rings feeling their way over his chest, his shoulders, his waist, and moving for his belt.

“Good,” Seungcheol says. 

He wants to take care of Minghao, needs to, doesn’t intend to stop now, even as his fingers tremble unbuttoning and stripping Minghao of his shirt. He swallows, and his eyes flick up from Minghao’s lean muscle to peer into his face where he’s considering him, a soft smile playing on his lips. Seungcheol feels like every millimeter of his skin is flushed, like he wants this too much, and that it shows.

But his prince leans up, one hand at his face, and kisses him again. Soft, grounding. “Can I take care of you too?”

The air is pulled out of Seungcheol’s lungs.

Minghao may be a prince, but he feels like a castle to Seungcheol, something unfailing, something that feels like strength and protection. Something that feels like home. 

And, sure, Seungcheol was hired to keep Minghao safe, and would give his life to do so. But if you ask him, he kind of feels like it's mutual.

“You always do,” Seungcheol echoes, and, with a kiss and a smile that melts open over his face like a sunset, Minghao dips his hand below Seungcheol’s waistband.

Seungcheol trembles under his touch, unravels when he feels Minghao’s careful, delicate fingers move slow and purposeful against him, can’t prevent the ragged, labored breaths that feather out against Minghao’s lips. Minghao kisses Seungcheol sweetly through the shuddering way he comes undone, too fast to savor. 

He savors it anyway.

The look in Minghao’s eyes as his breathing smooths out, a glittering field of stars, makes Seungcheol feel like nothing he’s known before. New and whole and home.

He surges forward, kissing his feelings across Minghao’s beautiful skin. Promises to worship at the altar of his body, his hands, his heart, as long as he’s allowed.  _ I love you, _ presses against Minghao’s neck, wide and fair in its strong expanse.  _ I love you, _ Seungcheol presses against Minghao’s collarbone, the sigh Minghao lets out more reward than a purse of coins.  _ I love you, _ Seungcheol presses against Minghao’s heart, the beat of it like the kingdom drum under his kiss.  _ I love you, _ Seungcheol presses against Minghao’s stomach, against his hips, against the insides of his thighs, against the juncture between them.  _ I love you, I love you, I love you. _

“I love you,” Minghao gasps as he falls apart by Seungcheol’s mouth, golden sighs and alabaster sounds pouring from his beautiful lips like he doesn’t know what he’s saying. His eyelashes flutter and he curls forward, body spasming as he comes, knees pressed together against Seungcheol’s shoulders, pulling him closer as he shakes through it.

In his hands Seungcheol holds remarkable beauty, and he doesn’t want to hold anything else. In that moment he gives up the javelin, gives up the sword, gives up the gun. 

Maybe he gave them all up a long time ago.

Seungcheol doesn’t realize he’s crying until Minghao tugs him up, holds his face in both his hands, kisses below his eyes. That beautiful mouth murmurs Seungcheol’s name against his skin, each kiss lifting tears off his cheeks. “I love you,” Minghao whispers like reassurance, like coronation vows. It sounds perfect and unbelievable, so Seungcheol laughs a little, incredulous and happy. So happy.

“I’ve loved you for a long time,” he manages through very ugly sniffles, and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He doesn’t know where to start. With the festival, the tailor, the Conference of Nations, the wildflower field, the café? Hell, with his coronation? “I think I’ve always loved you.”

“Me too,” Minghao says.

And he laughs, too, the fond and giddy one Seungcheol loves so much, despite the way there are tears pooling like diamonds in the corners of Minghao’s eyes as well. Sealing it with a kiss, Minghao’s laughter melts between them, and lights Seungcheol up from the inside out. The sun meeting the moon on the kingdom crest.

  
•

Now that the hunger inside Seungcheol has a name, he finds it utterly ravenous. 

Powerless to stop it, he’s lucky Minghao knows how to feed him so well, pulling Seungcheol into dark corners and corridors and kissing him senseless behind old family tapestries hung dusty on the palace walls.

In between legislation meetings, Minghao’s hand curls over the back of Seungcheol’s neck, fingertips brushing the clasp of his necklace, tucked under the collars of his shirts, and Seungcheol can feel Minghao smile into their breathless kisses knowing that the crest lies against his breastbone, over his heart, and that Minghao put it there. En route to the throne room, Minghao’s pinky brushes Seungcheol’s, and a tingle zips up Seungcheol’s arm. 

He’s starving for every beautiful, stolen moment, slow-cooking himself in the soft way Minghao looks up at him from where he sits at the council table, glazing himself in the syrupy look in Minghao’s eyes between courses at dinner, only to lay himself out to get eaten alive when the sun goes down. Indelible in Seungcheol’s mind is the first time a curse drops from Minghao’s lips, all high tones and tightly gripping hands.

He can’t find it in himself to be bashful. Now that the dam has burst, Minghao and Seungcheol both scrabbling to tear down the bricks, every emotion he’s ever tried to tamp down is flooding out, filling him corner to corner.

Mere minutes before they are due to receive diplomatic guests, his arm flies out to brace above Minghao’s shoulder as Seungcheol is tugged by the back of the neck into a deep kiss, Minghao leaning against the wall of the conference room to pull Seungcheol flush against him. Seungcheol only thinks for a moment on how he needs to lean in closer to fully keep Minghao out of view of the doorway. The slide of their mouths is so good, and Minghao’s hair is so soft when his fingers run through it. Minghao is so lean and strong between his arms, and when he pulls away panting, he’s looking up at Seungcheol with this heavy gaze. It’s heady, breathtaking, and Seungcheol feels flustered and delighted in equal measure, heat creeping up to his ears at the way Minghao doesn’t blink, just laughs and moves to kiss him again, honey-dark.

Color rises to Seungcheol’s cheeks at the loudly cleared throat behind him, turning to shield Minghao’s own disheveledness behind his body and finding himself face to face with Prince Joshua, whose grin is cat-got-the-cream.

“Pardon my pause while I deliberate. I’m trying to decide between ‘don’t stop on my account,’ and ‘finally,’” Joshua smirks.

At the joke, Seungcheol’s rigid posture slackens just a fraction, but he still holds fast while Minghao shuffles behind him, probably refastening a button or two on his shirt. Seungcheol would smile a little smugly at the thought, were he not plagued with the idea of what people might think, if anyone else had stepped in and saw him cornering Minghao, crowding their beautiful Crown Prince up against a wall like that. 

Never mind the fact that Minghao held all the power in the exchange, or that he always does. Never mind the fact that Seungcheol is endlessly weak for Minghao. Appearances are everything, and he knows exactly what people would see.

“Don’t worry so loud,” Joshua says, more kindly, reaching a hand out to shake Seungcheol’s. “If I may be frank, I’m a little surprised it took this long.”

“Hyung, must you reveal  _ all  _ my secrets?” Minghao sighs, woebegone, hooking his chin over Seungcheol’s shoulder. When Seungcheol shakes Joshua’s hand in greeting — soft, yet strong, broad and stocky — he can hear Minghao hum, a satisfied little sound.

Joshua’s face, expressive as ever, flickers with something devious before he settles on a more gentle, teasing one. “Oh, Crown Prince, you think so little of me that I would tell Seungcheol-ssi just exactly  _ how _ you’ve longed for him? Or I could tell him what else I know, though from your display I see he’s done well discovering on his own.”

The sound Minghao lets out at that is  _ very  _ unprincelike, and he all but shoves at Seungcheol to get in front of him and squawk at Joshua, whose low, hiccupy laugh is all the armor he needs against Minghao’s glower.

“Oh? And what of what  _ Mingyu  _ knows? Should I divulge any of my knowledge to him, then?” Minghao counters.

“This— this is not about Mingyu!” The speechless sounds sputtering from somewhere deep in Joshua’s throat make Seungcheol feel like he just watched Minghao fence, effortlessly parrying and striking the match blow.

Fondness and a strange sense of pride roll over Seungcheol like fog in the morning, and he can’t stop the laughter from pouring out of him. It’s been a long time since he’s heard this much laughter ring through the halls of the palace, much less with himself at its epicenter.

Weeks pass thusly. By now the dam of emotion is all but gone, and without it, Seungcheol adds an ocean or two to the map.

Minghao wakes up early, clutching letters in his hand, dashing into his room in the guardsquarters in the wee hours of the morning to bury his face in Seungcheol’s neck and read aloud the words Seungcheol dedicates to him the night before, the way he has always wanted to give voice to his clumsy heart.

_ The moon rises when you retire so that I may see you even when we are apart. Our hours are long and yet I still look to the sky for your face, your hands, your heart. _

Having Minghao so close feels like a dream Seungcheol has woken up from before, so he grounds himself by tracing the shell of Minghao’s ear, pressing his nose against Minghao’s temple, by counting the breaths rising and falling inside Minghao’s chest. How is it that the closer Minghao gets, the more anxious Seungcheol is for his loss?

“You worry too much,” Minghao says, quiet and sudden, tucking a hand up under Seungcheol’s shirt, just to rest against his ribs. 

In lieu of responding, Seungcheol makes a little noise, half-indignant and half-startled-pleased at the press of Minghao’s hand.

“I can hear you checking perimeters in your mind.”

It’s laced with a laugh, and does some work at smoothing the wrinkles between Seungcheol’s eyes. “You’re right.”

“Mm, I often am,” smiles Minghao. He presses a kiss to Seungcheol’s jaw and says, “I’m also right here. Can you turn off your brain for one minute with me?”

Seungcheol sighs, and it comes out dreamy and fond. He’s learning to push aside the embarrassment, learning to remember that he’s allowed this. That Minghao’s skin is pressed against his, and it isn’t a dream. Seungcheol takes a deep breath, letting goosebumps fan out from where Minghao gently rakes his blunt nails back and forth, a comfort. And no small one, either. 

“Minghao, what comes next?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Minghao replies honestly, murmuring it like a prayer against the crook of Seungcheol’s neck. “I just hope it’s good.”

And isn’t that something? To share a dream with someone. To quietly murmur a wish to the world, let it take wing and soar out into the universe and just  _ hope it’s good.  _ Seungcheol rubs a thumb over Minghao’s cheekbone, just to do it, and he can feel Minghao smile.

•

It’s like night and day, Seungcheol’s energy.  _ (Knight and day, _ Minghao teases breathlessly after a midday tumble in bed, relishing the blush that settles over Seungcheol’s cheeks and ears whenever Minghao talks about his job in that  _ tone.) _

Propriety settles back into his muscles and bones now that he and Minghao have heaped more responsibility on their plates again, but so much of the tension in his body Seungcheol never thought he would be freed of is just… gone. 

The bruised demon-wing feeling fades off Seungcheol’s shoulders, slowly but surely. His cheeks ache instead, with the effort of pushing his smile off his face when Minghao kisses the divot in his cheek before pushing open the door to receive his people, early in the morning before it gets too warm. Seungcheol sees Minghao take a child’s hand and let her tell him about her schoolteacher, whose classroom books got ruined when a pipe burst at the school, and watches Minghao’s brow furrow and eyes glimmer before sending for Seokmin to reach out and donate books personally from the palace library.

Yoona asks him for an hour of spare time to help wrangle the year’s new guardship, and Seungcheol readily agrees. He knows Minghao is hiding in shadow under the eaves of the overlook, watching him lead the pack, running shirtless and setting pace for the new recruits. The knowledge pulls back his shoulders with pride and casts wind at his feet, and his buoyant speed makes some of the recruits groan.

A handful of them are as doe-eyed and bewildered-looking as he was, but one of the trainees, Jiseok, eludes Seungcheol’s evaluation. Seungcheol can’t quite place his attitude, equal measures cocky and obnoxious. He gets the feeling Jiseok would run into traffic just to blow the whistle himself and issue tickets. He doesn’t seem to have any discipline and hardly listens to Yoona, his nose always upturned like his father being metropolitan police commissioner means something here, means glory over dedication and hard work.

Seungcheol changes into a fresh shirt not in the guardskeep, but on the training field, to stay close to his prince and to put himself at the disposal of the recruits if they seek guidance or reassurance. He remembers how hard he had to work, being brought on in the autumn instead of midsummer with the rest of the trainees, how Yoona was there to encourage and motivate him. His role is different than that of the rest of the guard, but maybe he has some insight. He hopes, anyway.

It turns out he doesn’t get the chance, because Jiseok’s nose is more than just in the air, it seems; it’s in business where he needs to mind his own.

“Where did you get that?” Jiseok says, eyes trained on the crest dangling, nestled like a tattoo in the middle of Seungcheol’s chest.

Quick and practiced, but not defensive, Seungcheol clips on his vest and buttons up his shirt. “The Crown Prince gave it to me,” Seungcheol says, tucking the necklace below his collar and glancing over to Minghao’s spot on the bridge, eyes finding his shadow with ease. Just making sure.

Jiseok snorts. “Yeah, I bet he did.”

“Excuse me?” Seungcheol says, and he can tell how low his voice drops in the way the other trainees turn to look, wide-eyed, at Jiseok’s lazy smirk and Seungcheol’s perfectly impassive face.

Shrugging, Jiseok’s face has that smug little grin plastered on it, like this is all some little cat-and-mouse game he’s outgrown instead of a job he is perilously close to losing. “I bet he did,” he repeats.

“What are you implying, Jiseok-ssi?” Seungcheol says, knowing all these years of serving at Minghao’s side have imprinted a bit of even-keeled, dangerous calm on him that he can channel in moments such as this. “Please enlighten me.”

“Just that we all know exactly what your place next to the Crown Prince is really for. I would imagine no one took Prince Minghao for the  _ kept man  _ type, but a surprise is a surprise, no matter what the tabloids are saying. Though I suppose years can’t wash off the business major in you, huh? What a golden opportunity for Choi Seungcheol.”

“Park Jiseok,” Yoona barks, having heard enough, and the other recruits straighten instinctively. “Grab your belongings.”

“That’s fine with me. I’ve seen more than enough,” Jiseok says with no small amount of vitriol, and with one of Yoona’s hands gripping his shoulder to steer, he is marched inside, undoubtedly to be searched for bugging.

The other trainees look bewildered and shocked by the whole exchange, and Seungcheol gently dismisses them for the day, encouraging them to return to the guardsquarters now that their session is well done. It all just seems so futile and weird, the easy way in which Jiseok gave up everything to do this, and then threw it away like it meant nothing. It begs a question Seungcheol doesn’t know how to even begin to ask.

Minghao’s face is stormier than Seungcheol has ever seen it when he appears at Seungcheol’s side moments later, and Seungcheol’s own brow furrows with worry. “Minghao, what is it?”

“My mother has called to see us.”

And there’s one question, at least.

Seungcheol’s hand finds the small of Minghao’s back as they walk briskly toward the throne room, not caring who sees. Over the last few months he has been photographed with his hand on Minghao’s back, his waist, the nape of his neck, guiding and protective, and no one has been the wiser as to the ways in which his body and soul have been nourished by the simple connection.

Well, that’s what he thought, anyway. 

But at this juncture, Seungcheol is willing to throw all caution to the wind. The doors to the throne room are as looming and heavy as ever, and Minghao stops short of it. He stares for a moment at the door, long fingers hovering near the handle, then turns.

“Hyung,” Minghao says urgently, his shaking hands finding Seungcheol’s face. “No matter what happens—”

“Minghao,” Seungcheol breathes, and surges forward to kiss Minghao, in front of God and everybody. 

If this is the end, he’s going to make sure Minghao knows it was all worth it. That he would do it all over again, given the chance. He can’t let decorum take one more thing away from them. They’ll always have this, no matter what happens.

Minghao is pink and flushed and shines from his eyes when Seungcheol finally pulls away, and while he looks a little kiss-dazed and woozy, the feathering of his hair around his temples hopelessly endearing, something settles in his eyes like determination, like resolution. Seungcheol thinks he should be putting his life in Minghao’s hands, rather than the other way around. Let him cradle it in one palm and burst through the doors, bold and protected.

Reaching down to briefly squeeze Seungcheol’s hand, Minghao nods firmly and pushes open the door with both arms. 

“Mama!” Minghao calls, and Seungcheol’s stomach is in knots.

They turn the corner, and the Queen is her endless two meters away, and Minghao’s face settles into a stoic line, so Seungcheol follows suit.

The Queen does not pull punches. “What is the meaning of all this?” she asks, her schooled face a crow-footed mirror of Minghao’s own. Seungcheol would laugh at the classic line, were he not terrified for what’s about to happen.

“And by  _ ‘all this’ _ I presume we mean the manner in which a guards’ trainee was unforgivably insubordinate to several tenured personal detail royal officers,” Minghao says calmly.

The Queen’s mouth tightens, the corners of it pocketing into her cheeks the same way Minghao’s do. “That is part of it, certainly. But more pressingly, the things he discussed in questioning…  _ Er zi,  _ I urge you to do damage control here. I have made several suggestions to Nayoung, and we have already put under investigation the Incheon Metropolitan Police Department for concealed surveillance of the Crown. But we must act quickly to ensure the particulars are within our control.”

“Forgive me, mama, but what part of this needs damage control? The fact that the people doing recruitment allowed a person like that to train under service of the Crown? Or the fact that he purposely disrespected Yoona-nim and Seungcheol-hyung, on royal property, no less?”

Minghao’s posture is tight, and his tongue keeps catching as he slips between the wide, sibilant formal language he usually speaks in this room and Seungcheol’s native one. His spine becomes impossibly more rigid when his mother makes a unique noise at his response.

“Hyung?” she repeats, her mouth lengthening the sound, and her eyes catch on Seungcheol a step behind Minghao, poised as he has ever been. Three syllables drop from her small, surprised mouth, as if by accident: “Oh, Minghao.”

“Oh, I see,” Minghao says, bristling. “It is not that treasonous infiltrator’s presence that bothers you, is it?”

The Queen’s face shifts into something between exhausted and upset. “Minghao,  _ er zi—” _

“Not that right now, please,” Minghao huffs, nails digging into the meat of his thumb behind his back. Seungcheol wants to reach out, take Minghao’s hand in his own, coax his fingers into calmness again, but holds his body steady. “Why do I disappoint you so?”

“You do not disappoint me, Minghao, you know this. You are doing exceedingly well with your work in diplomacy and policy, and you are especially gifted with the people. But you must also know that some of those people who love you now will see–” she gestures with a wave of one poised hand between her son and Seungcheol  _ “–this, _ and see a gullible, easily swayed ruler, one who allows whomever off the street into his land, into his palace, into his bed—”

“Seungcheol is not  _ whomever off the street!  _ And, what’s more, you do not know me as well as you think you do if you believe Seungcheol is taking advantage of me,” Minghao interrupts, deadly-even, and Seungcheol wonders if anyone else would be able to hear the thinly veiled contempt in his voice, or if it’s just him. “If I know anything about my people, it’s that they know what love looks like. They love their families, their teachers, their friends, their jobs, their art. They love each other enough to come all the way here and see us, to help one another, to sacrifice what little they have for each other. Far be it from me to try to assume that they will not respect my love the way I respect theirs. I am not afraid of a Jiseok or two.”

The Queen’s jaw tightens, conceding the point, and she takes a deep breath before responding. “Strong muscles alone do not a good guard make, Minghao, much less a prince consort.”

“You did not stop me when I took Seungcheol on those years ago. Why, then, if to just beat us down when I fell in love with him? More importantly than his strength, he is kind,” Minghao says fiercely. “He has done nothing but protect me for years, done everything for this kingdom, this family.”

_ The heart is a muscle,  _ Seungcheol hears like an echo in his mind, Minghao’s voice.  _ The strongest one you have. _ He lifts his gaze from the shape of the Queen over Minghao’s shoulder to stare unblinking at the fresco curving along the dome of the ceiling, lest he fall to pieces, victim of the pricking feeling behind his sinuses that threatens to spill from his eyes. 

Even if Seungcheol cannot have him forever, to have held him for as long as he could will have been the great joy of his life.

His mother begins again, “Minghao…”

Minghao is so brave and beautiful, his usually even voice raising, cracking, impassioned as Seungcheol has never heard it. “No, mama! To love him freely should not be such a ridiculous request! Have I not done my duty? Has he not done his? I ask this one selfishness!”

Selfishness. What a concept. Selfishness is something so impossible to associate with Minghao; he does nothing for himself, constantly thinking only of others. 

To think of himself as something  _ kept,  _ something selfish and precious and just for Minghao, is an overwhelming thought, nearly too much for Seungcheol to bear. He doesn’t ever want to be the thing that holds Minghao back from becoming the great leader he was always meant to be. He is not at liberty to demand selfishness of his own.

It seems the Queen concurs. The scrutinizing gaze that Seungcheol basks in like sunbeams from her son is so much cooler coming from her, glaring down from the throne like a searchlight. Seungcheol feels butchered to bone under it, skeletal, like she is always looking to see what he’s made of.

“Choi Seungcheol.” Her voice is quiet, but firm. It is as even as ever, and it is not a question.

“Yes, your Majesty.” It is not a question either.

The Queen’s face reveals nothing. Between them, Minghao is wound tight like a wire, energy metallic and sharp and full of potential. His back is turned to his mother, now, his eyes are trained on Seungcheol; he can feel them, wrapped around him like Minghao’s tender embrace, built around him protective like armor. 

But Seungcheol’s own eyes meet the Queen’s.

“My son says he loves you. What would you say to this?”

There is a persistent lump in Seungcheol’s throat, and the wet pressure behind his eyes continues to build, but he takes a deep breath. He looks away from the Queen, then, to look at Minghao. His Prince.

And despite the bubbling emotion simmering inside him, all the electricity crackling under his skin, Seungcheol smiles. 

“I would tell you that I have loved him since I met him. I would tell you that being loved by him is the greatest privilege of my life, second only to protecting him with all the life I have. I would tell you that you have been a clever and compassionate Queen, with a legacy unmatched, and that he has all your strengths, and many that are completely his own. I would tell you that he will make a fine King. About this I have no doubts.”

As Seungcheol speaks, Minghao’s eyes grow larger and brighter, two suns, two moons round in his lovely face. Incredulity or pride or shock or some mixture of the three are plain across his face. A part of Seungcheol missed the days Minghao was so easy to read like this, though he wishes the circumstances were different. For a brief moment Minghao is nineteen again, all cherry-blossom cheeks and glittering eyes, reaching out to Seungcheol, asking,  _ will you trust me?  _ Saying, _ I trust you.  _ In that same moment, Seungcheol is twenty-two, saying  _ yes.  _ Saying,  _ I do not know it yet, but I am already yours. _

Continues Seungcheol, “I would tell you that if Minghao asked me to leave my post, I would do as he wished. But no sooner would I be wrenched from his side as he would from my heart, even by you. With all due respect, of course, your Majesty. And I would tell you that you already know all of these things, and ask, humbly, what you mean by it.”

He doesn’t know where all this boldness is coming from. But there is no other moment than now.

For a long, suspended moment the Queen does not respond, just evaluating Seungcheol, ignoring the feverish energy emanating from her son. Until she nods, so curtly that Seungcheol almost misses it.

“You wear our crest, do you not? Surely you know what it represents.”

Seungcheol’s hand flies to his sternum, but he resettles them at the small of his back.

The Queen’s face is graced briefly with amusement, but it clears quickly, a sunshower played in reverse. “The sun and the moon, together in the sky. A symbol of the balance and growth that love and mutual respect can bring to a kingdom.”

“Your Majesty?” Seungcheol still feels like he’s missing something.

“My son fights for you now, as I have watched you fight for him over the years,” she says carefully, as though she is weaving a story on a loom. “Never fighting his battles for him, but being a presence which bolsters his own strength.”

Minghao turns slowly on the ball of his foot to face the Queen again, stepping back from where he had positioned himself between her throne and Seungcheol to stand at Seungcheol’s side. Between them, their hands find one another. Their fingers thread, a chain unbroken.

The Queen’s eyes reach the shape, then look up into Minghao’s face. “I said once,  _ er zi,  _ that I have no interest in controlling you. This is true, and I’m sorry that I have acted Queen to you and not mother.” She looks down at the place where her crest bracelet rests on her narrow wrist. “Your father is the sun, patient and steady. My discipline and hardheadedness needs his warmth. I see that in you, all your persistence and ambition held by Seungcheol’s steadfastness and devotion.”

It’s as though Minghao can feel, electric-current, the warmth flushing under Seungcheol’s skin, because his hand tightens in Seungcheol’s and he asks quietly, “What are you saying, mama?”

“I am saying that perhaps it is high time I let you make more of your own decisions. If Seungcheol was your first one, it’s set quite a precedent.” And the Queen does something unexpected, then:

She stands, walks the vast desert between her throne and her son, and smiles.

Minghao’s eyes rapidly well up with emotion, another dam burst, and no sooner does Seungcheol let go of his hand than his arms are thrown around his mother’s shoulders, pulling her so close that her crown, pinned into her hair, is knocked askew. A breathless, sobbing, incredulous giggle makes its way out from between them, and when Minghao extricates himself from his mother, he’s smiling through his tears.

“I knew I could expect much from you,” the Queen says to Seungcheol slyly, and Seungcheol’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Your Majesty?”

“Oh, mama, you won’t regret this,” Minghao beams, wiping his eyes and grabbing Seungcheol's hand again, and pulls him out of the throne room bodily, with the most haphazard bows of salutation either of them have ever given the Queen. To her credit, she’s still smiling as they burst out into the grand foyer, hand in hand. Minghao is almost running, wild horses and sunlight.

“I love you,” Minghao says, like he can’t help it. The sound bounces through the atrium, floating into the coffering, and Minghao visibly delights in the not-quite-echo, repeating, like it’s a song, a hymn, aiming it toward the heavens, “I love you. I love you!”

It’s easy to hear, and even easier to return. “I love you,” Seungcheol laughs, and lets Minghao kiss him, sweet and simple, in the open.

It’s plain to see how much lighter Minghao feels. Seungcheol feels it too. And together, they step into the sun.

•

Seungcheol is newly twenty-eight when he dons a crown of his own.

“I don’t think this is right,” Seungcheol panics, even as Junhui artfully arranges his hair in dark gentle waves curling long around the gold band atop his head.

“Are you doubting me?”

Laughing, Seungcheol says, “No, Jun, never. Just… Why do I need to try it on in the first place?”

As he continues to pluck at Seungcheol’s locks, Junhui is suspiciously quiet, in the way where he is never quiet, so it is fundamentally suspicious. Seungcheol narrows his eyes and opens his mouth to confront it, but the argument is knocked out of him when long arms wind around his waist, a kiss pressed to the nape of his neck.

“Good afternoon,” Minghao noses behind Seungcheol’s ear, sending a shiver down his spine. The softness of it is sweet and stretched-out, a public echo of the private, sleep-rough voice and bare, sinuous body Seungcheol contended with when he awoke this morning.

There’s a gooey smile that melts over his face at the feeling of chaste lips against his skin. He knows it by the familiar way Junhui rolls his eyes and steps aside to pull out his phone.

Oh, Seungcheol has this one. “Funny you look at us like that when I know you’re texting Yanan right now to make sure his boutonnière matches yours.”

The look Junhui fixes him could put Medusa to shame, but Seungcheol just laughs and leans into Minghao’s embrace, relishing the smile he feels pressed against the crown of his head, a bullseye within a halo.

Minghao’s fingers trace the metal ring atop his head, toying with the end of a wavy strand of hair, then slide down the nape of Seungcheol’s neck to run a thumb over the chain of his necklace, the fingertips of his other hand brushing at his new watch. All these symbols,  _ I was here, I was here, you are mine and I am yours. _ Minghao always with him, even as Minghao is almost always with him anyway.

“You look handsome,” Minghao says, hands finding their way into Seungcheol’s pockets. “You’re dressed, right?”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows knit together. “Yes, this is the outfit.”

Minghao makes a little noise of dissent, then spins it into something thoughtful in his mouth, murmuring, “Do you think we have time to get you… undressed… and then dressed again… before the ball?”

A spark swallows down Seungcheol’s throat and ignites below his stomach, and suddenly all the trappings of playing prince with Junhui are all but gone from his mind. He practically Frisbees the crown off his head into Junhui’s blessedly reflexive hands, ignoring the clink of metal against his glass phone screen and his round-mouthed curses in favor of dashing somewhere and getting on his knees for his prince. 

Minghao’s giant brown eyes are soft when they gaze down at him, and when they screw shut and all Seungcheol can see past the alluring line of his neck is the way his mouth has fallen open, he thinks the way Minghao’s broad hand palms the back of his head and tangles into his hair feels more like a crown than any soldered gold could. 

And those same beautiful hands helping zip up Seungcheol’s dress pants when they’re both giggly and sated make Seungcheol feel downright royal. “Dress attendant and everything,” he jokes, and Minghao kisses him thoroughly and gives him a wry smile in return.

“Well, when you tell me not to bother taking my crown off before we do this I do feel awfully spoiled,” Minghao replies, and Seungcheol laughs, running his fingers through the front of Minghao’s hair where it’s not trapped under gold. “Even though it’s  _ your  _ birthday.”

“Are we ready, then?”

“Sure, dodge any mention of your birthday,” Minghao says sweetly, sliding Seungcheol’s watch back onto his wrist. “But yes. Now we are ready. And if Jun tries to give you shit, tell him, ‘no birthday, no opinion,’ and also I can bring up the time I caught him—  _ mmph!” _

Seungcheol would listen to Minghao talk forever, especially littered with casual profanity (Jeonghan’s increased influence is showing its teeth more and more every day), but there is something so satisfying about getting Minghao’s ridiculous lean waist in hand and swallowing his beautiful, rapidfire thoughts in a kiss, watching him blush and sway, watching his throat bob and that narrowed-eye smile melt over his face.

“If you think because you kiss me like that you can skip your birthday ball, you have another thing coming, Choi Seungcheol,” Minghao says primly, but the pinkness of his ears matches the blushing square of fabric in his pocket.

Seungcheol laughs all the way down to the ballroom.

For what it’s worth, letting Nayoung and Seungkwan plan most of this soirée has resulted in something surprisingly personal and unfairly beautiful, Seungcheol thinks, swallowing thickly when he enters the ballroom arm in arm with Minghao. The applause is embarrassing, and he refuses to make a speech on principle, and his prince expertly deflects attention away from him so he can breathe easier. Seungcheol murmurs his thanks against Minghao’s temple.

Young women in beautiful dresses line the walls, but only a few are waiting to be asked to dance; very few know that beneath their skirts are hidden their weapons of choice. A more diversified security detail was top of Yoona’s list when she reformed the guardship program, and top of Minghao and Seungcheol’s list was taking on her triad of archery champions as their preferred personal detail.

“You can go dance, you know,” Minghao says, his voice soft as it always is in his home tongue, and Tzuyu’s nose wrinkles.

“I’d rather not. And besides, Chaeng and Dahyun already are,” she sighs affectionately, tilting her head toward where they’re bouncing together at the edge of the dance floor. “Can you settle for two out of three?”

“Of course,” Seungcheol says, and lets Tzuyu pull him in for a warm one-armed hug. He can feel the holster strapped to her thigh under the silk of her dress press against his leg, and he grins knowingly. “You never relax, do you?”

Tzuyu grins back. “I’m always relaxed, actually.”

After a laugh, Seungcheol grimaces goodnaturedly. “I genuinely cannot imagine what that’s like.”

“I’m glad we’re here to balance you out then. Let us worry, or not, and go have fun, oppa. Happy birthday.”

Someone flags Minghao down from across the ballroom, and he looks back at Seungcheol and smiles, a sincerely apologetic, princely hand at his elbow. “Promise me a dance?”

“As though I could refuse you anything.”

As minutes pass as makes his way through the room, Seungcheol tries to ignore the uncomfortably large pile of gifts in the corner of the room, boxes and bags and  _ things _ he has never asked for or wanted, and thinks that once this whole thing is over, he should ask Seokmin to donate as much of it as possible, and then next birthday do what Minghao does and turn them away altogether in favor of charitable donations.

The guest list is thankfully fairly short, as Seungcheol is… public, in a way he always was, but not exactly in the way Minghao is. (The shock and gossip about him have mostly worn off after a few years.  _ He’s _ not the Crown Prince, after all. It isn’t very often he’s confronted with his own face anymore in the news while he scrolls through his phone, the way he was the first time when the news leaked of his crest necklace and netizens were trawling tabloids and old articles for clues about his romantic relationship with Minghao from before they even really had one.) It’s mostly their staff, their friends and family, Jun and his longterm beau, Seungcheol’s brother and his wife, Yoona and Yuri. stunning in their muscle and gowns.

Conspicuously absent is Joshua, whose RSVP with regrets and gift — a good one, one that Seungcheol will actually keep — were both very purposely routed through Minghao, both of which Seungcheol suspects has something to do with his impending nuptials to Kim Taehyung and far more than a little to do with his unresolved(?) sexual tension with Mingyu, so Seungcheol will forgive it this time.

What would be unforgivable is if Jeonghan had missed this, for all his grumbling about Seungcheol being  _ royal now  _ and  _ stealing his destiny  _ and everything, he has in equal measure been both awfully supportive and demanding. Seungcheol knows he wouldn’t skip the chance to visit the palace, visit him, nor would he miss the opportunity to use his plus two for the powers of good and evil.

Seungcheol nearly laughs at the sight of Wonwoo and Jihoon dancing closely, glad that finally someone is able to get Jeonghan as good as he gives. The frustrated little look on his face at being left out is priceless, especially funny after all the sexts Seungcheol isn’t sure he ‘accidentally’ received. Seungcheol thinks absently that of  _ course _ it would take two men to wrangle Jeonghan into his place. Ever the stewing type, Jeonghan picks up a glass of champagne and watches them intently.

“Jeonghan-ah,” Seungcheol does laugh, then, sidling up to Jeonghan and bumping his shoulder into his.

Jeonghan barely acknowledges him, tipping back his champagne, his eyes sweeping over the ballroom. “It took you long enough to invite us here, Cheolie. It’s almost like you’re—”

“Ashamed? Of you? Oh, endlessly.”

Huffing out a little laugh, Jeonghan leans his head on Seungcheol’s shoulder. “Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you didn’t do all this?”

“I try not to, actually.”

And that’s true. Seungcheol’s life has been turned upside down since Minghao looked up at him with young, bright eyes in a café, and Seungcheol quickly found that he would rather do a headstand than stay upright and let it pass him by. He doesn’t think about what his life would be like if it never happened. 

Jeonghan makes a thoughtful little noise of assent, but it sounds caught up in something, and Seungcheol suspects it’s not just air struggling to enter his lungs from the angle. Seungcheol follows Jeonghan’s line of sight where his eyes have softened, locked on Wonwoo’s arms slung around Jihoon’s neck. They’re not really dancing, but something close to it, swaying in the cradle of each other’s bodies under the thrumming bass, something Seungcheol never thought he would see in this or a thousand lifetimes, and it all pieces together.

“Do they know you’re in love with them?”

And to his credit, Jeonghan doesn’t shove him, just keeps looking, tongue running over his teeth. “Be pretty hard to miss, I think.”

“Maybe for me,” Seungcheol says. “Not to blow my own horn or anything.”

“Best friend privilege,” Jeonghan mutters, not nearly as annoyed as he clearly wants to be.

“And bodyguard training, yeah.” When Wonwoo looks over at them, Seungcheol feels Jeonghan stiffen a little, then slump against his shoulder.  _ “Go, _ Hannie.”

Jeonghan huffs. “Where’s your prince? I don’t take orders from you.”

“Go, hyung,” Minghao says suddenly with a gentle laugh, appearing at Jeonghan’s side to take the empty champagne glass out of his hand and nudge him onto the dance floor. However reluctant at first, Jeonghan walks over with gliding steps like a man on a mission, and is welcomed into the fold by both Jihoon and Wonwoo.

Minghao drops the empty glass onto a passing waiter’s tray and spins himself into Seungcheol’s arms, which accept him readily.

“Can we have that dance now?”

“It would be my honor, Crown Prince,” Seungcheol says, and Minghao smiles, charmed and sweet, at the use of his title.

When he takes Minghao’s hand and lets himself be led into the middle of the room, it’s striking how it doesn’t feel like the first time anymore. Their hands clasp, and Seungcheol still lets the zip of breathlessness and warmth settle in his stomach at the feeling of Minghao’s fingers between his, now lined with sweet comfort and familiarity. Whatever special brand of touch-starved he had been is long gone, and now he feels Minghao at the nape of his neck, the inside of his wrists, fingertip to fingertip, heart to heart.

“I can’t believe you told me I was handsome when you were standing right there. Aren’t there laws about ignoring princes?” Seungcheol teases, giddy with the sight of Minghao’s pink eyeroll and pressed-lip smile.

“You already got me out of this suit once today, do you really think flattery can get you lucky again?”

Seungcheol leans in closer, feet following Minghao’s in his surefooted steps. “No, I just wanted to tell you you’re beautiful.”

Minghao does look beautiful, his deep-red velvet suit lush and simple, and there’s a glow washing his skin, gold flecks of light on his hair from the crown and the ballroom lights gilding his cheekbones. He looks happy. Song after song, Minghao whirls him around the floor in front of everyone, and Seungcheol knows it can’t get better than this.

“I think it’ll be time for cake soon, but I think we have a few minutes. Do you want to walk with me?”

“I thought you said I wasn’t getting lucky again.”

Minghao’s giggle is intoxicating, but he doesn’t say no, and he steals Seungcheol away, leading Seungcheol in a stroll out of the ballroom down the hall. They slow once out of earshot of the music, and Seungcheol lets Minghao press his shoulder against his and wind up the stairs, pushing open the door to the balcony. The night is still, even as all the vibrations from the party rumble downstairs.

“I’m the lucky one,” Minghao says, answering the joke earnestly, leaning his elbows on the railing and looking out at the marble and field below. “I never thought it could be like this.”

Seungcheol rests one arm on the railing, looking at Minghao. “You made it like this. Before you, there was so little  _ life  _ here. You were doing everything you could but you were frustrated. I have watched you become what you always hoped, and then keep going.”

Minghao turns and meets Seungcheol’s eyes. “Diplomacy is easy for me. Knowing what’s in the people’s hearts, our neighbors’ hearts, that comes naturally. It comes from the heart, but somewhere so different than the place where I love you.” He smiles softly, a bare hint of it, illuminated by the night. “You know how I never like to give gifts face to face. I never know what to say.”

And Seungcheol thinks back on all the quiet ways Minghao has always left him lingering reminders of how he cares for him, and how he’s kept them, saved and hidden away from even Minghao, somewhere safe for him to trace letters and ink and love.

The notecard from Seungcheol’s first gift from Minghao, the watch and the note both worn to shreds over the course of the years.  _ Something strong for someone strong. _

The delicately fading photostrip.  _ I don’t want anyone but my side but you. _

The crest necklace, shining like stars against Seungcheol’s breastbone.  _ No matter what happens, I am with you. _

The letter from Seungcheol’s new watch, on his side of the bed after Minghao ran off to make quick work of the morning’s meetings to get the rest of the day free.  _ Thank you for always choosing to spend your time on me. Yours, today and always, Minghao. _

“I promise this is the last present. I know how you are,” Minghao laughs, the clear sound of it shaking off the moisture collecting at the edges of Seungcheol’s eyes. “I hope you like it.”

Taking his crown off to run a hand through his hair, Minghao looks eager, the way his body vibrates with ideas and policy proposals and the myriad other incredible, genius things he lets simmer under his skin. There’s excitement, sure, but Seungcheol is also hit by the feeling he gets when he knows Minghao  _ has  _ to do something, has to be or make something lest his body betray him and he explodes.

“What is it?” Seungcheol smiles, reaching up to tuck a messy, loose strand of hair behind Minghao’s ear. He looks moonstruck as he shuffles in his pocket, nervous and eager and beautiful.

And Minghao drops onto one knee, and the shining look in his eyes glows through Seungcheol like the moon, steadies him like the sun. He’s swearing fealty, ring box in hand, and Seungcheol feels bulletproof.

And Minghao does not have time to ask, for all of Seungcheol’s resounding eagerness. His incredulous smile and kingdom heartbeat answer for him, because Seungcheol would do the same thing a million times over, just as he did all those years ago. 

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idol mentions/cameos: sojung (sowon) from gfriend, yanan from pentagon, dahyun, chaeyoung, and tzuyu from twice, taehyung (v) from bts
> 
> thank you so much for reading! this fic is something i am immensely proud of and i’m so happy to have shared it with you. for maximum cheolhao devastation, give _send me the moon_ by sara bareilles a listen.
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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